Latin American Literary Review Volume 46 / Number 91 2019

ARTICLES

Isadora Grevan de Carvalho. “Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada.”...... 2

Samuel Ginsburg. “Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas”...... 12

Ana María Pozo de la Torre. “El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman.”...... 22

Derek Beaudry. “The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject.”...... 32

Carmen Serrano. “Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula.”...... 41

Catalina Rodríguez “Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía.”...... 50

NEW CREATIVE WORK

Deni Lazo, “Nuestra once.” (Poetry) ...... 59

Lena Retamoso Urbano, “Carta al caballero de la triste figura.” (Poetry)...... 60

Samiri Hernández Hiraldo,“ A párpados forza’os.” (Poetry)...... 62

Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 607-255-4155 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.lalrp.net Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

Revisiting Female Sexual Honor and Femininity during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada

Isadora Grevan de Carvalho Rutgers University

ABSTRACT: This article presents an analysis of two female characters on Rodrigues’ and Assunção’s plays, Geni (Toda Nudez Será Castigada) and Mariazinha (Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito). It looks at the ways the characters’ expose their literal silences (half sentences, unspoken gestures, desire to speak) into obsessions with body parts and objects. Their sexuality and being is often seen as a type of “monstrous feminine” (to quote Barbara Creed’s term), not just by others, but even to themselves, which is often subtly revealed or disguised. I aim to forge a dialogue between Nelson Rodrigues’s character and the new dramaturgy writer to explore how both brought to the fore questions surrounding the position of women in this society and their particular “feminine” response to the dictatorship as a performative inquiry.

KEYWORDS: Brazilian Theater, Theater, Latin American Theater, Dictatorship, Feminism, Woman, Body, Psychoanalysis, Literature, Drama, Nelson Rodrigues, Leilah Assunção, monstrous feminine, performative, theatricality, History, Brazil

Yan Michalski, a renowned Brazilian theater critic, authored a percebendo os métodos dos censores, começou a number of books on theater during the dictatorship in Brazil (1964- burlá-los: escreviam o que sabiam que seria aprovado, 85). When comparing his point of view regarding the impact of e encenavam a proposta que pretendia mostrar suas this period on theater production, we see a change in his writing opiniões, visões políticas, ou abrir espaços ao debate from originally pessimistic in 1979 to fairly optimistic in 1985. For e a estimular a consciência, usando táticas como as instance, in 1979, he wrote: “Para além, e muito além, das proi- metáforas. (6) bições propriamente ditas, o mal causado pela censura ao recente teatro brasileiro prende-se também ao generalizado processo de This article presents an analysis of two female characters, one autocensura que se implantou na sua esteira” (48). However, Mi- named Geni in Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada (1965) chalski, when reflecting back on his initial assumptions, demon- and another called Mariazinha in Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito (1969) strated a change in his point of view on how censorship affected by Leilah Assunção. It examines the ways the characters transform artistic expression from 1979 to 1985 (gradual liberalization of the their literal silences (whether in half sentences, unspoken gestures, dictatorship): “A 20 anos de distância, parece-me que o equívoco or mere attempts to speak) into obsessions with body parts and ob- que cometi na época ao atribuir uma ‘mediocridade generalizada’, jects that, at least at first, appear as simply “madness” or psychic a uma temporada tão repleta de bom teatro devia-se, em parte, a disturbances. Their sexuality and very existence are often seen as uma insatisfação, ainda que não conscientizada, diante da falta de a type of “monstrous feminine” (to quote Barbara Creed’s term) or um rumo mais definido por parte do nosso teatro”(23). a sexuality that every character is loath to directly address, so that, Though seemingly paradoxical, during the dictatorship in as a result, these conditions are often disguised or only subtly re- question (1964-1989) and in light of a long history of repressive po- vealed. My objective is to forge a dialogue between Geni in the Ro- litical regimes (particularly censorship regardless of type of govern- drigues play and Mariazinha created by the new dramaturgy writer ment in power), there was an effervescence of original plays and Leilah Assunção to explore how both brought to the fore questions theatrical productions. In fact, playwrights seemed to experience surrounding the position of women in society and their particular an urgent need to express a particular type of social unease while “feminine” responses to the dictatorship, as a praxis of performa- inventing creative ways to disguise any obvious political messages, tive inquiry. as Mostaço points out below: During the height of the dictatorship, a series of plays were written and performed that experimented with different types of Chegou um momento em que a classe teatral, family units (or lack thereof) in contrast to the traditional patriar- Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Latin American Literary Review • 3 Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. chal family1 while also exploring issues of gender boundaries and gender and/or social classes engaging in intimate conversation. A sexual expression. At the same time, a series of female characters prime example can be found in the supposedly chance encounter were created that reflected the new female ideologies proliferating depicted in Fala Baixo in which Mariazinha acts out a variety of sex- in the American and European feminist movements of the time (in ual fantasies and explores her most intimate desires. She comes to opposition to the highly moralistic stance on the family and gender terms with the theatricality of her life and how she had been con- roles upheld by the dictatorship). These movements defended the trolling everything including her social class. She also realizes that rights of single women that had no desire to marry or particularly her own prejudices were identical to those of the society she is part valued married life; strong independent women who worked as of, slowly helping her detach from it. During an encounter with an prostitutes; sexually free women; and women who remained single unnamed “marginal” or “criminal” character, both of the characters for lack of sexual pleasure. play out different dream-like scenarios, in addition to question- In the context of Brazilian literature, however, the depiction ing the specific gender roles they each perform. This encounter, of these types of female characters is not new. There are numer- although a revision of the gender perfomative prerogative, is also ous examples of fluid depictions of the patriarchal family versus its dependent on their positions within the social scale. Mariazinha has antitheses and the eroding gender boundaries in texts dating from a special relationship with the objects around her and often talks the 19th century onward. Nonetheless, specifically in the circum- or mumbles to herself. Similarly to Geni, the Rodrigues character, stances surrounding the dictatorship and the theater, the visceral Mariazinha has a number of fetishized objects with which she con- reality of these female characters gains a new vitality. In Rodrigues verses on a regular basis. Towards the end of the play, both her, and and Assunção, for example, half- naked female bodies are exposed the unnamed man, end up literally destroying her spotlessly clean, on stage together with their bodily fluids and other “improprieties”, organized bedroom. though in many cases, they might be only alluded to (in words) in a In turn, the character of Geni records her personal story (sub- highly descriptive manner. sequent to their marriage) in her own words on a tape to be lis- The split and simultaneously concomitant presence of public tened to after her death. She works as a prostitute until she meets morality as espoused by the nation state and the so-called private Herculano, a widower, who will eventually become her extremely morality espoused by the individual are evidenced in the two plays jealous husband. She is obsessed with the fear of dying of breast via the juxtaposition of contradictory moral codes. The first rep- cancer and often talks about this “lyrical” aspect of her upcoming resents a conservative patriarchalism, determined by the existing death, which mentally has been transformed into a type of fetish. Catholic moral code, while the second is indicative of a skeptical While her gender is well defined at the outset, it slowly undergoes morality as inspired by individual desire and influenced by the ex- metamorphosis as the plot unfolds. Female and male roles are istential meanderings of the characters. Godoy describes this split reversed, played out, and put on display as farcical. As with many in Rodrigues as a “failure of the Brazilian project of modernity” (47) of Rodrigues’ plays, the typical patriarchal family is dissolved and whereas DaMatta sees it as an intrinsic part of the Brazilian social the repressive aspect of societal appearances is explored through structure2. This new group of dramaturges, which includes Assun- Herculano’s sisters and son, Serginho, especially after his mother’s ção, would later be denominated as belonging to a movement death. Much of Serginho’s anger and anxiety is somewhat resolved called Nova Dramartugia. At the same time, Nelson Rodrigues, al- when he escapes with a Bolivian robber and exposes his homosexu- ready a renowned author, spearheaded a new cycle of plays, later ality. Geni, however, is the only character in the play who does not called Tragédias Cariocas3. Toda Nudez Será Castigada is one of the repress either her sexuality or sexual desires, as opposed to Mari- last plays penned by Rodrigues prior to an eleven-year hiatus. azinha, who until she meets the Man, pretends she experiences no Perhaps due to Rodrigues’ unique style, his work has not cus- sexual desire whatsoever. tomarily been analyzed in contrast to or in comparison with other Contrary to the openly political theater of the time, these two Brazilian authors of the same period, though I argue he has been authors do not overtly discuss the current repressive regime nor highly influential. Rodrigues’ characters included the on-stage ex- any political ideas per se. Instead, their political ideas are expressed position of their different planes of consciousness as well as their in the types of relationships that are depicted and the hypocritical extreme self-consciousness through the process of their being veneer accompanying them. These discordant political and social clearly aware of portraying real-life performances. Thus, this radical opinions are especially in evidence when the constant split between new approach to dramaturgy paved the way for the emergence of the outer world of appearances and the inner world of the individual a new group of writers, such as Leilah Assunção, who used similar is revealed and juxtaposed. Thus, this “new” theater, considered in approaches of distancing and looking critically at her performance parallel with Rodrigues’ ouvre, calls into question the existential on stage. condition of the individual members of society in light of the minu- In fact, its first phase of development, Nova Dramartugia plays tiae of class and the nefarious effects that certain political and so- often had very few characters who typically portrayed chance en- cial conditions have on the individual as shown on stage. This “new” counters by two or more individuals with disparate personalities, writing came into its own during the aforementioned dictatorship, 4 • Latin American Literary Review Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. abandoning the use of large scenic metaphors and exploring in- Most of Rodrigues’ plays adopt a melodramatic tone when tense conflict by way of direct speech and the overt confrontation dealing with alienation effects. This unusual theatrical combination of words by using a type of Brechtian estrangement effect. is perceived by the contradiction within each character’s own as- Toda Nudez sera Castigada features one more example of the sertions, as well as their strange behavior. In the first act, Geni says labyrinthic qualities of Nelson Rodrigues’ playwrighting style. While “caridade eu não faço!” (166). But, in the end, she asks Herculano: the metafictional feature found in most of his plays is heightened “Vamos fazer um amorzinho bem gostoso? [...] Só essa vez e nunca here, it is explored differently in The Wedding Dress and Boca de mais!” (185). And, at the same time, she melodramatically announc- Ouro than in Toda Nudez. As with his other works, the content of es her own death from an imaginary cancer, which, coincidentally, the play and the structural elements of the narrative are of equal also killed the late wife of Herculano’s. Geni seems volatile, unsure important in developing the narrative arc of the play as a whole. of her feelings, and certainly does not resemble the archetypal qual- From the start, the reader is aware that the successive scenes in the ities of a prostitute either. Interestingly, she is not portrayed as a play are but functions of the narrative Geni relates in her cassette victim of her circumstances, nor does she feel any shame for being tape recordings, not necessarily the “real” events that might have one, but as someone who creates her own reality. She is poetic and taken place. However, because of the on-stage lighting used to in- self-reflective: “Herculano, você interessou de cara. Te confesso. troduce and resemble flashbacks and the fact that the first scene Talvez porque havia uma morta.[…] E a ferida no seio. Eu não sou depicts Herculano’s coming home and immediately playing the como as outras. Eu mesma não me entendo”(167). tape, it is hard to clearly see what point of view is being portrayed When watching her aunt die from cancer and hearing from her in all the scenes. There is a separation between the story that Geni own mother that she would die of the same disease, she does not is telling as a type of performance or a representation of memory really doubt that that will also be her fate. Moreover, the obsession fragments of an unreliable narrator and what is performed on stage with death is a recurrent theme in the work of Nelson Rodrigues, concerning Herculano’s memories (mixed in together with those of exposing a degree of mysticism together with a fetishism of death the other characters). This double destabilizing technique further as parts of a sort of redemptive process within Brazilian culture5. In complicates any hope of reaching a univocal interpretation. a phone conversation with Geni, Herculano attempts to summarize In the first act, the characters follow the voice-over of the pros- their relationship by a contradictory mystical triad: “Escuta, você titute telling a story in flashback. The scenes are initiated either at tem uma alma, meu filho outra e há uma ferida. Eu sou um bêbado the sound of Geni’s recorded voice or by the voices of other charac- que passou pela sua vida e sumiu”(176). Thus, characters, lacking ters. As is the case with many of Rodrigues’ plays, truth emerges in belief in Catholic morality to define their lives, construct their own the process of storytelling and not as a result of the “facts” them- moral codes. selves, which can never be recovered in a literal way. The immediate In the second act, Herculano puts Geni up at an apartment so effect on the audience is that of estrangement4. Serginho, for exam- he can meet with her in secret. Aunts # 1, # 2 and # 3 with no name, ple, only appears in the second act, even though Herculano makes appear as a type of chorus. They appear to represent the opposite reference to him throughout the first two. Thus, it is impossible to side of Geni, a dichotomy that is slowly erased as the play unfolds. feel that we are actually seeing Serginho devoid of different points Adverse to sex, older, and virgins, they support Serginho in his ob- of view that describe and might enclose him. Patricio, Herculano’s session to keep his dead mother alive by his daily visits to her grave brother, is the orchestrator of the narrative by inserting Geni into and by taking baths and smelling his underwear in order to hope- the family and having a decisive role in all the dramatic changes tak- fully detect any trace of prior sexual activity, which is never found. ing place during the play. Patricio promotes the meeting between The virgins demonstrate a perverse sexual pleasure in the act of pre- Herculano and Geni and tells Serginho about the involvement of his venting Serginho from having sexual pleasure. At the end of the sec- father with the prostitute, which supposedly leads to the Serginho’s ond act, Aunt #1 reveals to Geni and Herculano that Serginho was emotional imbalance, imprisonment, and the meeting with the Bo- raped by a Bolivian thief. Apart from the psychological aspects of livian thief towards the end of the play. Patricio is also responsible the whore-madonna complex, explored by Freud6, Rodrigues brings for convincing his nephew to accept the marriage of his father with to the fore the changing political and contradictory gender dynam- the prostitute and to subsequently seduce her for revenge. Patricio ics in Brazilian society, which is also examined in Fala Baixo Senão eu is both Machiavellian and a seer as someone who truly knows the Grito. Herculano claims that his son “não aceita o ato sexual” (174) Achilles’ heel of each character, as he affirms: “Eu sou o cínico da and when commenting on the act with Geni, Herculando degrades família. E os cínicos enxergam” (165). As is common in Rodrigues’ himself: “estou babando como um cão” (173). Though some char- dramas, the play of appearances and his narrative style confuse our acters repress their sexuality, they always sublimate or express it in perception of all the characters. Patricio, though clearly an orches- some way. Geni is the only character who is not afraid of expressing trator, and perverse in his desire to punish his brother for not having herself sexually or of feeling sexual pleasure. saved a business transaction, seems to be used as a mere device to It is in this instance that the idea of the “monstrous feminine” exploit the theatricality of everyday (Brazilian) moral life. is also exposed: Serginho’s strange fear of sex, as it relates to his Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Latin American Literary Review • 5 Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. mother; Herculano’s nausea of his wife’s dying body; Herculano’s Dias antes da edição do AI-5, atacara “padres e bispos feeling of debasement when experiencing sexual pleasure; Geni’s da esquerda festiva que incutem determinados obsession with breast cancer in only one breast and with death it- problemas sexuais nos jovens para acabar com a família” self (corpse) along with her incestuous relationship with Serginho e os estudantes “que fazem o jogo dos grandes grupos and the “monstrous feminine” embodied in homosexuality. The econômicos”. Enaltecia o AI-5 como instrumento “para monstrous feminine is related to the female body since femininity promover a reforma das estruturas superadas que is unnameable. But it does not depend on the biological aspect of resistiam aos esforços de atualização pelos caminhos sexual identification, which is symbolic on the level of the play. In normais”. (111) Fala Baixo, it is revealed in Mariaz’ frigidity and the Man’s description of her as “ugly”, bloody, and as a corpse full of flies. Creed de- Caulfield, in investigating the history of women’s sexual honor scribes it in relation to the feminine in horror movies, connecting codes in Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century, reveals that, the idea with the concept of abject in Kristeva. All the abominations even after the Promulgation of the Republic (1889) and for de- of a religious nature described below are present as a facet of the cades to come, jurists attempted to rewrite the laws concerning monstrous feminine in the two plays: “deflowering”, “the honest woman”, and “seduction” (10), but found it difficult to conciliate the new liberal mentality of gen- At crucial points, I shall also refer to her writing on the ab- der equality before the law with the old protectionism regarding ject in relation to religious discourses. This area cannot be women’s sexual honor: ignored, for what becomes apparent in reading her work is that definitions of the monstrous as constructed in the Moreover, even without knowing it, jurists who interpret- modern horror text are grounded in ancient religious and ed Brazil’s legal code continued to imbue honor with its historical notions of abjection—particularly in relation to older racial and class components. Honor thus frequently the following religious ‘abominations’: sexual immorality obscured contradictions between official principles of and perversion; corporeal alteration, decay and death; universal citizenship, equal rights, and democracy, and human sacrifice; murder; the corpse; bodily wastes; the the realities of gender, class, and racially-based discrimi- feminine body and incest. (my emphasis, 69) nation. (9)

To complement the idea of the monstrous feminine, the authors A sexualized woman’s body before marriage or (even within explore the dichotomic dimensions of sexual honor imposed by marriage, when viewing sexual morality through the prism of sexual honor codes. The idea of sexual honor explored by the two Church teachings) could compromise family honor and be a disrup- playwrights go hand in hand with the contradictions expressed tor of the patriarchal norm. Therefore, being (or at least appearing in relation to private and versus public morality (or lack thereof) to be) a virgin before marriage was extremely important in order to described in the beginning of this essay. It is important to em- preserve the patriarchal code of honor. Besides, the mere threat of phasize this aspect since the playwrights are putting on display sexuality or sensuality could present a problem since it was not al- the masking and confusion in a system with innumerous contra- ways easy to prove whether a woman had had sexual relations with dictory viewpoints on sexuality while exploring the effect they someone or not. Nevertheless, the new liberal ideas emanating have on the individual, but especially the female characters. from Europe and the United States reflecting changes in the world’s These contradictions are also part of the “anarchical” quality of perspective on the traditional patriarchal family could not help but the dictatorship itself, as Gaspari notes in A Ditadura Escancara- exert a strong influence on cosmopolitan cities like Rio de Janeiro, da, when describing one of the generals in charge: the then capital of Brazil, and São Paulo, for example. With the development of the city and its cultural manifestations and soirees to- Expressão do voluntarismo militarista, quase sempre gether with a rapidly-emerging bourgeoisie, married women could falava em nome de um ente vago denominado “nosso more easily leave the confinement of their homes and participate grupo”. Era exacerbado e, muitas vezes, desconexo. in urban life. This new reality made protecting a woman from any Propagava aquele palavrório pomposo que, na anarquia sexual contact with men other than their husbands or other male militar, confunde-se com enunciado de propósitos (em- relatives much more difficult to control along with the accompany- phasis added). (111) ing rumors and speculations that arose in this matter, thus creating an anxiety-ridden reality for women. Because of the involvement of segments of the Catholic Church Caulfield, when describing the position of jurists and reform- against the dictatorship, he even goes so far as to criticize it for try- ers of laws regulating sexual crimes, honor and morality in Brazil in ing to end “the family”: the 1920s, affirmed that they believed “a postwar crisis of morality threatened women’s honesty and, hence, the family. The danger, 6 • Latin American Literary Review Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. they insisted, did not arise from modernity itself, but rather from writing his first plays (1940s), many of the traditional honor codes the unpreparedness of the masses of Brazilians for the new liberties ascribed to women are still in place. Petra Ramalho Souto, for ex- of modern society” (82). In this scenario, we can clearly see how the ample, describes dichotomic dimensions ascribed to women in anxiety of being or not being a virgin is something that circumvents Brazilian society and how the female characters in Rodrigues’ plays most of Rodrigues’ female characters as well as the new dramar- follow their own ethics of conduct, at times contradicting the moral tugy authors; values that the dictatorship brought back to the fore expectations of society and family. in its imposition of censorship, media controls, and severely limit- ing free speech7. We could also conjecture, that, due to the distinct …retoma a discussão sobre a visão dicotômica da mul- codes ascribed (and available) to the different socio-economic her na sociedade brasileira (puta/santa) e conclui … que classes, middle-class women might be plagued with the impossibil- a mulher rodriguiana ao ser classificada como santa ou ity of having an orgasm as they are generally raised to fear sex and puta, não é necessariamente boa ou má, segundo julga- wait to be married to have sexual intercourse. mentos morais, mas um ser que segue, a fim de satisfazer To complicate matters even further, according to the Interna- seus desejos, uma ética própria que por vezes contraria a tional Encyclopedia of Sexuality in the Chapter “Brazil”, Brazilians moral sexual vigente na sociedade que se reflete no texto have a different type of attitude towards sexuality and eroticism rodriguiano. (29) from that of other societies that follow predominantly patriarchal and Roman Catholic values: In the third and last act, Geni, imbued with a sense of Christian guilt despite following her personal code of ethics, as seen above, In this respect, Brazilians tend to allow expressions of sex- says: “Eu tenho pena do teu filho, e quando tenho pena sou uma uality and eroticism that are quite unacceptable in other santa!” (216) She decides to ostensibly “save” Serginho, hospital- areas of the Latino world, especially in public. This dispar- ized after being raped by the Bolivian thief. At the same time, Geni ity can be traced to a unique blend of Roman Catholic and and Herculando marry with the blessing of the aunts, who now con- native Indian values with a strong African influence. Like sider Geni part of the family and adamantly profess she was a virgin other Latinos, Brazilians have taboos and restrictions when she got married. Fulfilling Patricio’s macabre plans, Serginho on public sexual behavior. However, Brazilians draw an betrays his father by getting romantically and sexually involved important distinction between public and private behav- with Geni. However, in the end, he runs away with the Bolivian thief. iors that preserves traditional Indian and African values. The aunts are prone to follow an easily changeable code of ethics so “Within four walls, beneath the sheets, and behind the they can keep receiving money from Herculano, proving that their mask of carnaval, everything can happen!” “Everything,” so-called strict moral code is primarily based on self-interest. Geni, or tudo, refers to the world of erotic experiences and on the contrary, acts according to her own belief systems, even her pleasure. The phrase fazendo tudo, “doing everything,” belief in God is in accordance with her conduct. means Brazilian men and women have an obligation to A voice-over ends the piece, revealing the tragic outcome: Geni experience and enjoy every form of sexual pleasure and is dying. Lacan says “poetic creations engender rather than reflect excitement, or more precisely those practices that the psychological creations” (Session 13, p. 214). And that is perhaps the public world most strictly prohibits. This, however, must difficulty in tackling this play. Though Rodrigues` plays deal with the all be done in private, behind the mask, between four impossible conciliation between individual psychological desires walls, or under the sheets. and the morality of the Church/family/state, his plays also go beyond these dichotomic characterizations8. At first, characters like This division between the four walls of the home and the street Geni contribute to destabilizing some moral notions we might have. complicates the sexuality of women since it creates contradictory There are some obvious features of the characters that are desta- expectations. On the one hand, women are encouraged to experi- bilized even further when considering the act of telling and/or ma- ence and expect sexual pleasure. On the other, they are encouraged nipulating stories. Even if we accept a story as true in terms of fac- to ascribe to an appearance of purity in the outside world. Further- tual evidence, it is still hard to pinpoint the real motivations of the more, living under the authority and protection of a husband or fa- characters. Characters speak in half sentences, scenes are abruptly ther, women are also encouraged to maintain a chaste demeanor at ended, and characters often show signs they enjoy leading double home. In turn, we could always conjecture whether this permission lives and out rightly lying, when convenient. The extremity of chas- to “do everything” in the bedroom applied more specifically to men tity and other types of moral prohibitions are readily deconstructed to guarantee that women dispose of their bodies to, first and fore- when characters are easily swayed to give up their belief systems in most, serve the sexual pleasure of men as opposed to their own. exchange for a different type of gain, creating aneconomy of desire. Therefore, despite the rapid changes taking place in relation We can assume that the whole play is told from Geni’s point to the patriarchal family structure when Nelson Rodrigues begins of view and her fantasies of death as a form of redemption and of Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Latin American Literary Review • 7 Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. going back to what she believes to be her real self, “different from for example, constantly makes reference to her breasts: “O melhor most prostitutes”; someone who has the soul of a puritan, a spiri- você não sabe. Tenho uma cisma que vou morrrerei de cancer no tual person in the body of a prostitute, yet desiring woman. The seio” (1054). Or: “A coisa mais dificil é um seio bonito”. Geni also most obvious elements the play tackles are the madonna-whore feels that her body is that of a martyr’s: “Meu amor é pena” (1091) complex, the dichotomy between sexual desire and its repression, and even though she works as a prostitute, and has no qualms about and the idea behind the monstrous feminine. These elements are it, she feels nauseated when looking at a picture of herself naked. supposedly unleashed by lack of inhibition after moments of cri- As seen in all of Rodrigues’ plays, Geni embodies the two opposite sis, near-death experiences, nausea at the sight of sexual images extremes of stereotypical female fetishism (saint vs. prostitute). in connection with the chaste wife, and pleasure during sex with She attempts to redeem herself by marrying Herculano and having a prostitute. Serginho as a lover in order to save him (again, accepting a double Rodrigues plays with a lot of dichotomies and many of them code of ethics of both saint and prostitute). Most of all, through the pertain to Brazilian culture and imagery and the corresponding so- conscious performance by Geni as both martyr and savior, she justi- cial structure, as follows: the dichotomy between life and death, fies her past behavior as a prostitute as well as her adultery, making and sexual desire and purity, and the qualities associated with re- it possible to act out both in a continual performance of these two ligious morality versus the those associated with a more libertine roles as an obsession. mind such as symbolized by the doctor in the play, an atheist and Moreover, all the characters are looking for some sort of salva- communist, versus the priest. In fact, Magaldi stresses that: “Em tion or sexual pleasure through the adoration of one another, which pólos antagônicos, o médico e o padre completam o círculo fami- seems to a create a split and either a continuous consciousness of liar, fundado um na autoridade da ciência e outro, na da religião. […] doubleness or consciousness of performance. The contradiction A análise fria dos diálogos no contexto em que se travam, permite within the structural relationship highlights DaMatta’s configura- arriscar que Nelson não isentou de ironia as convicções que ambos tion of Brazilian society that accepts contradictions as long as each ostentam” (37). Herculano actually migrates between the two exis relegated to different spaces in the social structure (house, street, treme moral codes in quasi-analytical sections depicting the two and the world of the dead). Even though morally “wrong” in the figures of the doctor and the priest in the process of figuring out eyes of the Church and in the home, for example, Geni feels she is what to do with his son Serginho. doing something good so that Serginho can live, i.e., according to a Of note, there is one insight that is in tandem with the idea of kind of street code of ethics. By the same token, she assures herself the monstrous feminine, or the abject, which is related to Sergin- she is doing something good for herself as well by being with some- ho’s sexuality. When alluding to Serginho’s assumed rape by the one she considers very pure (atoning in the world of the beyond, Bolivian robber, the doctor says: “ Pois essa monstruosidade foi o saved by love and grace). She performs the role of prostitute, wife, ponto de partida para um processo de vida” (205). At this point, it and lover as if they were mutually inclusive. However, the presence is hard to know whether or even if the imagination and memory of of these different structural and contradictory expectations of the Herculano play a part. The conscious mind is certainly put on display female body is mostly oppressive to the female characters that are via theatrical scenes and devices, mirroring the fictional narrative. dependent on men for their survival. Geni, even though she makes Again, the poetic imagery engenders the psychological structures, her own money, ends up being financially dependent on Herculano making it hard to maintain the dualities put forward on stage. after she meets him. The patriarchal stance is completely demolished in the pro- Though, at first, it would seem that Patricio is the catalyst for cess of uncovering the monstrous feminine as not so monstrous the characters’ decisions throughout the play, it becomes clear that and then embracing it. Geni is a highly-sexualized woman, who also Geni could be seen as the catalyst. Her complete sense of personal does not easily take orders from men. Although she is still inscribed and moral freedom, as reflected in her suicide, is a type of agency in the male fantasies and their manipulations, she attempts to have she is trying to impart, which she cannot either as a wife or a pros- the last laugh by killing herself (corpse and death as abject). To what titute. There is the in betweeness explored in her obsession with the degree her love interests and even falling for Serginho is a mere abject of death. Her affair with Serginho is redeemable in her view stepping stone to her suffering, an excuse for martyrdom, and the since it is due to “pure motherly love”, free of the shackles of the ability to die the noble death, is never clear. There may be a certain two institutions. nobility in the incest in the play since she is the mother figure for Thus, in terms of the history of Brazilian theater from the 20th Serginho. century on, Geni is certainly one of the strongest female characters The fetishism of a woman’s body is focused on the breast (as in ever created. By developing her own ethical code of conduct amidst breast cancer), on the naked body, and on the contradictory shame the confusion of sexual honor codes ascribed to women in different of seeing the naked body, which the aunts and Geni both obsessive- ways depending on their class, race, and socio-economic position, ly have to cover up. As we will see in more detail later, the abject of Geni reverses the typical gender roles. Her sexual expression is front the female body as the unknown both attracts and repulses. Geni, and center similar to a man’s considering the type of male charac- 8 • Latin American Literary Review Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. ters in the theater of the time. She says, for example: “Há homens armed Man who enters her house. The Man asks her: “Não sabe o que gostam de apanhar!”(205), in response to Herculano’s accus- que é gozar? Não? Responda!”, to which she replies: “Não sei! Não ing her of not being a lady for swearing. She also says she is young, sei!” (112). The encounter precipitates an imaginary tour of the city needs a man, and cannot go without sex for too long (205). In the of São Paulo, in hallucinatory mental leaps, literally breaking not end, she transforms her breasts into symbols of her femininity, only with convention, so to speak, but the entire world of objects degradation, and salvation, all at the same time: “Lembranças à tia surrounding her. Fearful and demure at first, furious and impulsive machona! Malditos também os seios!” (238) Due to her bending of in the end, she makes use of swear words as well as reveals a desire gender norms, Geni became a muse for a cross-dressing/transgen- to be loved and married. When finally asking him to be her boy- der character in Opera do Malandro (1978), a play by Chico Buarque, friend, the Man replies: “E você acha que o bonitão aqui vai perder also written during the dictatorship. tempo com um bagulho como você?”(100). Feeling desperate, she In analyzing the character of Mariaz, we could initially say that responds: “inteligentíssima, independente, intelectual bonita” and, she represents Geni’s extreme opposite. Mariaz is a virgin, well or- screaming, she asks: “Minta! Minta! Minta! Que é um solitário que ganized, lives with other women in a hotel (pensionato) that pos- talvez se case comigo. Eu sou boa de cama! Mente que quer casar sibly has a religious affiliation, and does not have many dreams -be comigo”(101). At this point, though also in the pretense of a perfor- sides the immediately mundane. But a closer look reveals she is a mative mode, she relates her dream of marrying a prince just like in mystic of sorts and wishes she could have studied philosophy. She the fairy tales she read as a child while the Man standing in front of also obsesses about feminine images, especially those associated her is real, flawed, and might even be a criminal. with her childhood. Her fixations echo Geni’s regarding her lack The prayer of Mariazinha to meet a Man to marry is formulated of a childhood and her motherly instincts transformed into sexual in the course of the imaginary trip that she and the Man take as they ones. In contrast to Rodrigues’ style, Assunção’s style lacks a melo- are running around the room. As she lets the construction of her- dramatic tone and is tragicomic bordering on the absurd. Thus, the self change, perceiving the performance to which she has been as- alienation effect employed here unfolds through the absurdity of cribed, all the objects in the room lose their importance. Reality, as the situation. a possibility that would destroy imagination, gives rise to anguish. Mariazinha makes an effort to always look impeccable in her The Man, while disdainful towards her throughout the encounter, uniform, a discreet suit. She believes she’s always “well-behaved” finally decides he wants her to go away with him. When a woman and fulfills all her obligations by following rules to a “t”. She is punc- announces in the hallway that it is 7 a.m., Mariaz suddenly wakes up tual at work, always pays her loans on time, and regularly saves from her “dream” and screams for help rather than run away with money every month so she can finish paying for this small studio. the Man. Awaiting the day, she can move to her own apartment, she spends The prejudices among the different social classes, the- mon her days in a boarding house for girls watching TV in her free time. strous feminine as a religious prerogative aiming to maintain sexual Hebe Camargo is one of her favorite entertainers. Mariazinha claims honor, and the performance of different gender roles are all drama- she could have studied philosophy since she thinks she is a mystic. tized in this play through the character of Mariazinha just as they All this is said in her own words although the tone borders on the are in Rodrigues’ play through the character of Geni, who acts as a ridiculous. She is seen talking to the objects around her, especially catalyst. In fact, because the Man is unnamed, he can also be seen the wall clock her father gave her, the nightstand, the bed, and a as a figment of Mariaz’ imagination or of the chorus’ (as the aunts closet. They are all hilariously decorated with balloons and bows are in the other play). and ribbons that young girls would wear. From this point on, I will analyze different passages in chrono- When she was a child, she fit inside the furniture. As an adult, logical order. Due to the absurdist quality of the text, it will provide she would ask: “Não é esquisito não caber mais dentro das coisas? a more organized overview of the path, the play follows. In the Foram elas que cresceram, ou fui quem diminuiu?” (27). Because of beginning of their encounter, the Man incites Mariaz to act and the absurdity of the scene, her thoughts, though seemingly pro- to change. He is a catalyst. Towards the middle, Mariaz takes the found, gain a strange quality, becoming meaningless. She seems to lead and, finally, towards the end, they blend in until the dissolu- be repeating words from books by Lispector (27), Lewis Carroll (27), tion of their encounter. The emergence of truth in story telling is or José de Alencar (“olhos negros como as asas da graúna”[27]), for questioned when the Man says: “Dona… Não tem nada que mexa example. She also talks in the language of jingles and children’s folk mais com meu nervo que desacreditar da minha palavra…Quando songs. However, despite the apparent emptiness of her words, she é mentira, eu acabo com o imbecil, mas mesmo quando é verdade, gradually reveals unexpected aspects about the world and herself eu já fico puto da vida!” (36) He then calls the balloon in her room after meeting the “Homem” (literally meaning the “Man”). “vermelho hemorragia”, verbalizing the first instances of the mon- Orgasm is an unknown experience for Mariazinha. She claims strous feminine. Her apparently childish love for balloons is seen as to have tried but unsuccessfully. A virgin resigned to the idea of be- blood (due to menstruation or a cut) and the border with the abject, ing single for the rest of her life, she iss surprised, one night, by an which, according to Creed, is “a taboo object within religion” (71): Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Latin American Literary Review • 9 Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada.

There is, of course, a moment in which the concept of a tion, destroying any possible means for her to experience sexual border is central to the construction of the monstrous in pleasure through sublimation. Elza Cunha de Vincenzo refers to the horror films. That which crosses or threatens to cross the objects as “fantasmas dos valores da família burquesa” (p.90, quot- ‘border’ is abject. Although the specific nature of the bor- ed in Vieira de Andrade, p. 34). Again, bringing back the monstrous der changes from film to film, the function of the mon- feminine, he tells Mariaz that her hair is full of flies as if her body had strous remains the same—to bring about an encounter become a corpse (to mirror the death of the objects in her room). between the symbolic order and that which threatens its Thus, though the monstrous feminine causes disgust, in the play, it stability. (71) is deliberately prompted so that aspects of gender and social structure are put on display in this nauseating dynamic. To the point, as In this play, the abject of the monstrous feminine is represent- he says: “Aqui jaz, Mariazinha Mendonça de Morais…” (63). She re- ed as: the threatening of stability in encounters among the social plies by threatening to kill everything around her, including him. The classes, the encounter of different gender roles, the instability of fear and hate of the monstrous feminine that could be unleashed by her organized life during the encounter, and her repressed sexuality. the destruction of the world as she knew it, prompts her to enter The construction of the discourse on an organized life is also seen as into a game of make-believe. They imagine themselves naked to- a type of control for fear of the abject. The Man philosophizes that gether walking down the street. As expected, they stroll around a “a cor que eu vejo nela é aquela que resolvemos chamar de vermel- cemetery, jumping from one tomb to another. At one point the Man ho. Hemorragia. Se bem, que daí, de onde você está, poderia ver ela says: “Eu te pego e viro do avesso” (82), a definite allusion to the com um reflex, da luz, e daí muda…”(38). He sees this abject in her sexual act as it relates to death. His reaction is mixed with words and forcibly makes her agree with him, demonstrating his patriar- such as “Eu sou uma caveira” and that he will kill her (80). Later, chal control over women. Immediately afterwards, he shows anoth- they both admit to not representing the typical gender norms. She er side of himself by saying he just wants company and is not there says she hates to cook and he says he cannot have sex five times to steal or rape (41). In terms of class, he sees his situation as having straight, he is not a “macho”(83). At one point they start repeating all the doors closed to him because of his lower socio-economic sta- words such as “sewage”, “water drop”, “everything broken”, calling tus. And Mariaz replies by offering to find someone to help him find out the abject from behind the clean façade of her room. She pre- religion. He crosses the path of the abject (her monstrous sexual- tends to be a rich woman, then the femme fatale Heddy Lamar (95). ity) when he says: “Eu só respiro quando vejo olho olhando, carne, At which point her moral code related to sexual intercourse comes risada, suor, pele……” (47). Later the Man calls her a rock, to which to mind when she says: “Será que ela está pensando que sou uma she replies: “Eu não sou pedra, nada!” (49). Her response is strange prostitute? Nossa! Olha lá a madame Rosalva! Se me vê, na certa since in the beginning she is upset and fearful of the intruder. At this conta pra dona Celestina que nunca mais me deixa entra na casa moment, she instead reveals a sense of pride and a desire to be seen dela!”, and he replies: “(ele mesmo) Burra! Mulher independente as sexually attractive for the first time in the play. After confront- não pensa isso! Faz o que quer!” (99). Later, she repeats the need for ing the unknown in him and in herself, she slowly demystifies the a lie she can believe in. She says she believes in marriage again and monstrous feminine while revealing that the furniture and objects begs him to pretend he will actually marry her. She gradually begins around her are her own family and friends, i.e., the fetishism of ob- to get tired and remembers her obligations. He convinces her to jects. As Lacan points out in describing the imaginary object petit a: swear, which she does. Towards the end, after he confesses to wanting to have sex with her, she trembles and confesses she is a virgin. The object of the fantasy, image and pathos, is that other The fear of the monstrous feminine of orgasm proves greater than element that takes the place of what the subject is sym- her desire. Finally, she hears the lady from the boarding house wak- bolically deprived of. Thus the imaginary object is in a po- ing everyone up. No longer the ridiculous woman with the perfect sition to condense in itself the virtues or the dimension curls anymore (113) (in the words of the author), she is conflicted. of being and to become that veritable delusion of being She ends up calling for the police, screaming: “Socoooooorrroo!!!!!!! [leurre de le’tre) that Simone Weil treats when she focus- Tem um ladrão dentro do meu quarto! Polícia!!”(113) Creed, in the es on the very densest and most opaque relationship of third definition of the monstrous feminine in the horror film, says: a man to the object of his desire: the relationship of Mo- “In the child’s attempts to break away, the mother becomes an ab- liere’s Miser to his strongbox. This is the culmination of ject; thus, in this context, where the child struggles to become a the fetish character of the object of human desire. Indeed separate subject, abjection becomes ‘a precondition of narcissism’ all objects of the human world have this character, from (p. 13)” (72). In the case of Mariaz, she cannot break away from the one angle at least. (15) mother (as it is clear in her references to her childhood). On a meta- phorical level, Mariaz is tied to the womb of the nation, the image The Man’s perception of the value of these objects prompts of the nation-state, that develops into the image of the abject re- him to perform a scene in which the objects are all put up for auc- lated to women’s bodies. She at least tries to break away from the 10 • Latin American Literary Review Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. idea of the monstrous feminine by being in direct contact with the neric boundaries of gender and questioned the patriarchal family as abject, at which point the feminine is not so clearly relegated to a the model of the perfect Brazilian family. Rodrigues, and then As- space of oppression. Assunção might not be giving us an answer sunção, developed nuanced characters that required critical evalu- to the problematics of gender in Brazil, but, through this process, ations on the part of the audience due to the authors’ use of clever she is showing the mechanisms that are used to keep it in place estrangement effects. Though Assunção is considered a feminist as well as the possibility, however contradictory and remote, that playwright, Rodrigues is not usually associated with the feminist Maria has to find a type of agency. Mariaz, though committed to a agenda. In fact, both made it clear they were unwilling to adhere to life of cleanliness and orderliness, has already found a way to have or be associated with any type of strict ideological agendas. In this agency as an independent woman, at least financially speaking. The article, I hope to have shown how Rodrigues’ work is echoed in the encounter with the other in terms of gender and class changes her new dramaturgy of the time while providing even more critical per- while bringing to the fore the absurdity of a value system based on a spectives on gender than were expected of the generation of 1969. patriarchal authoritarian system. Furthermore, as Vieira de Andrade It is also important to emphasize that these writers transformed the points out, problematics of gender into a political issue, beyond feminism. As Vieira de Andrade suggests: No Brasil de 1969, o repúdio à submissão da mulher soava como um eco de repúdio à falta de liberdade No caso de Leilah Assunção e Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito, política imposta pela ditadura. A questão feminina, o enfoque dos problemas específicos do tipo de mulher pela primeira vez, deixava de ser unicamente feminina que temia enfrentar seu próprio desejo sexual talvez não para transformar-se em algo mais universal: o tivesse alcançado a mesma receptividade por parte da desmascaramento do poder autoritário. [...] Quem crítica se o ambiente cultural não estivesse tão dominado poderia imaginar que uma solteirona infantilizada pela necessidade de luta contra a repressão política e a pudesse tornar-se tão perigosa? Para a censura, o perigo opressão em geral, o que permitiu que a problemática vinha justamente do fato de que a figura e Mariazinha do personagem Mariazinha também pudesse ser era a prova da estupidez de todo um sistema de valores compreendida de maneira mais ampla, para além dos defendido pelo autoritarismo da ditadura militar. (33) limites da questão feminina. (9)

The performative aspect of the dictatorship, in controlling ra- It is in this scenario that a new view of Brazilian social structures dio and TV to propagate the values of the patriarchal family as well is put on display. The writers are responsible for creating theatrical as that of the patriarchal father, failed to completely repress the devices of a complex nature while effectively producing other types production of dissident texts in the theater realm. Though it was of allegories to question the idea of Brazilianess (so much explored eventually silenced and was responsible for the exile of a number of by the modernist writers of the previous generations) especially in- playwrights and directors, the combination of contrary viewpoints novating in new concepts of marginal, within the framework of the springing up during that time, led to plays that challenged the ge- female characters.

NOTAS

1 The authors not only contest the patriarchal family as a revision of the prudente ao mencionar seus negócios e ultra-avançado ao falar de moda. authoritarian regime, but also revisit the model of the Brazilian patriarchal Provavelmente ficaria querendo ouvir para se comunicar sobre religião. family as a historical prerogative to understand Brazilian culture. This, in Em casa, porém, seu comportamento seria, em geral, marcado por um turn, provides criticism of the work of important Brazilian social theorists conservadorismo palpável, sobretudo se fosse um homem casado e falando such as of Gilberto Freyre and Caio Prado Junior. This discussion, though de moral sexual diante de suas filhas e mulher! Pela mesma lógica, uma pertinent, is beyond the purview of this essay. pessoa numa igreja, num funeral, num terreiro de umbanda ou num centro 2 DaMatta in A Casa & a Rua describes the idea of complementarity of espírita poderia marcar suas atitudes com um discurso diferente daqueles social planes and ethics of dual codes: Tenho tentado revelar que, no caso requeridos pelos espaços da rua e da casa. Não é agora podemos saber—ao da sociedade brasileira, o que se percebe muitas vezes como mudança ou acaso que temos um ditado que diz: “Faça como eu digo, mas não como diferença é apenas uma parte de um sistema diferenciado, uma constelação eu faço”. Entre dizer e fazer há um abismo que parece caracterizar todo sociológica com pelo menos três perspectivas complementares entre si. sistema dotado daquilo que Weber chamou de “éticas dúplices”, ou seja, Realmente, se entrevistarmos um brasileiro comum em casa, ele pode códigos de interpretação e norteamento da conduta que são opostos e falar da moralidade sexual, dos seus negócios, de religião ou da moda valem apenas para certas pessoas, ações e situações. (33) de maneira radicalmente diferente daquele que falaria caso estivesse na 3 The plays, after being written, were classified by Magaldi, Rodrigues rua. Na rua, ele seria ousado para discursar sobre a moral sexual, seria most renowned critic, following Rodrigues’ approval. The classification re- Revisiting Female Sexual Honor during the Brazilian Dictatorship (1964-85) in Leilah Assunção’s Latin American Literary Review • 11 Fala Baixo Senão Eu Grito and Nelson Rodrigues’ Toda Nudez Será Castigada. mains controversial, since Rodrigues creates his own classification in the 7 Michalski (1979) lists some of the guidelines officially received by the beginning of each play, which at times, contradict Magaldi’s overarching censors, which are very vague, but assumes a certain understanding of the denominations. expectations of what is considered proper (espousing family values) or not: 4 According to Brecht, estrangement or alienation effects, especially a) contiver qualquer ofensa ao decoro público; the ones used in modern theater, “are only designed to free socially-con- b) contiver cenas de ferocidade ou for capaz de sugerir a prática de ditioned phenomena from that stamp of familiarity which protects them crimes. against our grasp today” (8). c) divulgar ou induzir aos maus costumes. d) for capaz de provocar incitamento contra o regime vigente, a ordem 5 For DaMatta, death is seen as a metaphor for going up or down a pública, as autoridades constituídas e seus agentes; type of hierarchical plane: Ou seja, a morte no Brasil é concebida como e) puder prejudicar a cordialidade das relações com outros povos; uma passagem de um mundo a outro, numa metáfora de subida ou f) for ofensivo às coletividades ou às religiões. descida—algo verticalizado, como a própria sociedade—e jamais como g) ferir, por qualquer forma, a dignidade ou os interesses nacionais. um movimento horizontal, como ocorre na sociedade americana, onde a h) induzir aos desprestígios das forças armadas. (25) morte é quase sempre encapsulada na figura de uma viagem aos confins, 8 limites ou fronteiras do universo (Cf., para o caso brasileiro, Freyre, 1977: Guidarini in Nelson Rodrigues: flor de obsessão (and other critics of Nel- 84). (103) son Rodrigues) has emphasized the dualities and play of opposites in Ro- drigues’ plays. I, on the contrary, believe that the play of opposites is used 6 See, Freud. A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (Contribu- to destabilized prescribed dichotomies, a theatrical device. tions to the Psychology of Love I).

WORKES CITED

Andrade, Ana L. V. Margem e Centro: A Dramaturgia de Leilah Assunção, George, David Sanderson. Flash & Crash Days Brazilian Theater in the Post- Maria Adelaide Amaral e Ísis Baião. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2006. Print. dictatorship Period. New York: Garland Pub, 2000. Print. Assunção, Leilah. Da Fala ao Grito. São Paulo: Edições Símbolo, 1977. Print. _____. The Modern Brazilian Stage. 1st ed. ed. Austin: University of Texas Brecht, Bertolt, and John Willett. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Press, 1992. Print. Aesthetic. London: Methuen Drama, 2006. Print. Godoy, Alexandre P. Nelson Rodrigues: O Fracasso do Moderno no Brasil. São Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004. Paulo: Alameda, 2012. Print. Caulfield, Sueann. In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Na- Kaplan, Louise J. Cultures of Fetishism. 1st ed. ed. New York: Palgrave Mac- tion in Early Twentieth Century Brazil. Durham, N.C.: Duke University millan, 2006. Print. Press, 2000. Print. Lacan, Jacques. 1958-59. Unofficially translated by Cormac Gallagher from Creed, B. “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: an Imaginary Abjec- the unedited and unpublished French typescripts of Le Seminaire. Livre tion.” Screen. 27.1 (1986): 44-71. Web. VI. Le desir et son interpretation, 1958-59. Available at http://www. Cullen, Bradley, and Michael Pretes. “The Meaning of Marginality: Inter- lacaninireland.com/web pretations and Perceptions in Social Science.” The Social Science Jour- Michalski, Yan. O Teatro Sob Pressão: Uma Frente De Resistência. Rio de nal 37.2 (2000): 215. Web. 7 Jan 2014. Janeiro: J. Zahar Editor, 1985. Print. DaMatta, Roberto. A Casa & a Rua: Espaço, Cidadania, Mulher e Morte No Michalski, Yan. O Palco Amordaçado. Rio de Janeiro: Avenir Editora, 1979. Brasil. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1985. Print. Print. Francoeur, Robert T., and Raymond J. Noonan. The Continuum Complete Mostaço, Edelcio, et al. “A Censura ao Teatro no Regime Militar: O Caso International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. New York: Oxford University ‘Calabar’.” Seminário de Iniciação Científica, 23 SIC UDESC (2012). Web. Press, 2010. Web. Puga, Ana Elena. Memory, Allegory, and Testimony in South American The- Freud, S. (1910). “A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (Contri- ater: Upstaging Dictatorship. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print. butions to the Psychology of Love I)”. The Standard Edition of the Com- Rodrigues, Nelson, and Sábato Magaldi. Teatro Completo de Nelson Ro- plete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XI (1910): Five Lec- drigues: 4. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Nova Fronteira, 1981. Print. tures on Psycho-Analysis, Leonardo da Vinci and Other Works, 163-176 _____. Teatro Completo. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. Nova Aguilar, 2003. Print. Gaspari, Elio. A Ditadura Escancarada. Sã9o Paulo, Brazil: Companhia das Schwarz, Roberto, and John Gledson . Misplaced Ideas: Essays on Brazilian Letras, 2002. Print. Culture. London: Verso, 1992. Print. George, David Sanderson, and George Woodyard. Nelson Rodrigues and the Souto, Petra R. As Mulheres de Nelson: Representações Sociais das Mulheres Invention of Brazilian Drama. Lawrence, Kansas: LATR Books Univer- em Os Sete Gatinhos de Nelson Rodrigues. João Pessoa: Idéia, 2005. sity of Kansas, 2010. Print. Print. Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas

Samuel Ginsburg University of Texas at Austin, USA

ABSTRACT: The work of science fiction author Odilius Vlak (Azua, Dominican Republic, 1976) looks to the future to comment on the country’s past. In many of the stories that comprise the collection Crónicas historiológicas (2017), Vlak examines how history is written and remembered through the eyes of future Dominicans. In this article, I examine Vlak’s counterfactual takes on the Dominican War of Independence and the Trujillo dictatorship in the stories “Descargas de meteoritos en la batalla del 19 de marzo” and “Juegodrox platónicos.” By injecting speculative elements into such significant moments in Dominican history, Vlak critiques how histories are created, sold, and mythologized, while also highlighting the role of counter-narratives in contesting official accounts. In “Descargas de meteoritos en la batalla del 19 de marzo,” a mysteriously powerful space rock wins the Battle of Azua, and future generations are confronted with a virtual record of the violence of the Dominican War of Independence. In “Juegodrox platónicos,” future Dominicans attempt to solve the mystery of disappearing children during the Trujillo era, while the dictator enlists science fiction writers and artists to fortify his larger-than-life persona. Examining Vlak’s challenging of Dominican history opens up the possibility of studying contemporary Caribbean science fiction’s relationship to the future and the past.

Keywords: Dominican literature, science fiction, historical fiction, alternate histories, Caribbean

In the Dominican science fiction-comedy filmArrobá (2013), directed bitrariness of xenophobic and racist nationalism. At the same time, by José María Cabral, three amateur thieves named Samuel, Pedro, that Trujillo’s vision for the country can be extended so far into the and Pilón use a makeshift time machine to go back in time and retry future also suggests that his violent legacy has and will continue to a botched bank robbery. Unable to control the machine, the group infect national discourse. accidentally travels throughout Dominican history trying to make Similar to Arrobá, the work of science fiction writer Odilius Vlak their way back to the present, fleeing at different times from Span- (Azua, Dominican Republic, 1976) looks to the future to comment on ish explorers and Trujillo-era firing squads. After kidnapping Rafael the country’s past. In many of the stories that comprise the collection Trujillo and taking him with them in the time machine, the team Crónicas historiológicas (2017), Vlak examines how history is written finds themselves in a distant future, backstage at the filming of a and remembered through the eyes of future Dominicans.1 Odilius gameshow called GenomaElectrica. In GenomaElectrica, contestants Vlack, a pseudonym for Juan Julio Ovando Pujols, has become a are strapped down and forced to undergo a genetic scan that de- leading voice in Dominican science fiction; other thanCrónicas histo- cides what percentage of each subject is Dominican, and what per- riológicas, he has published the short story collection Exoplanetarium centage belongs to a “Raza Inferior.” The host proudly announces (2015), edited the first ever anthology of Dominican science fiction that the show has not only changed the color of television, but also and fantasy, Futuros en el mismo trayecto del sol (2016), and in 2016 the country, implying that those contestants not considered suffi- organized with the collective Mentes Extremófila the Dominican Re- ciently Dominican will be killed or deported once off camera. Pedro public’s first ever science fiction and fantasy congress. Vlak’s writing is chosen to be the first contestant, and is cheered on by the audi- often combines spiritual entities with futuristic looks at the power of ence after scoring an acceptable 64% Dominican heritage. The next technology. In this article, I examine Vlak’s counterfactual takes on contestant shuffled onto the stage is Trujillo, still disoriented from the Dominican War of Independence and the Trujillo dictatorship in the time travel. Once restrained, Trujillo is scanned and is found to the stories “Descargas de meteoritos en la batalla del 19 de marzo” be 51% of an inferior race. During the commotion of his removal, and “Juegodrox platónicos.” By injecting speculative elements into the rest of the crew quickly escapes back into the time machine. such significant moments in Dominican history, Vlak critiques how Though meant to be comedic, the scene of Trujillo’s humiliation on histories are created, sold, and mythologized, while also highlight- GenomaElectrica is an example of how futuristic science fiction can ing the role of counter-narratives in contesting official accounts. re-examine Dominican history. Trujillo’s failure to pass the purity A closer analysis of Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas offers insight test highlights the hypocrisy in his anti-Haitian policies, and the ar- into the role of science fiction in speculating on the future of histori- Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas Latin American Literary Review • 13 cal discourse. This article begins with a theoretical discussion on the his work meant that he spent much time doing research. The author genres of historical fiction and alternate history, examining their affirmed that it did, and added: abilities to contest dominant narratives both globally and in Latin American and Caribbean contexts. Next, I engage in close readings Hay alguna información histórica que tú no la consigues ni of the two previously mentioned short stories, focusing on how he- en Wikipedia ni en la Web…Tienes que ir a una biblioteca roes are created, histories are commercialized, and new technolo- y dedicar dos o tres horas leyendo; toma su tiempo… gies open up spaces for remembrance and mourning. In “Descargas Pero aunque leas un libro, tú en realidad explotas el 10% de meteoritos en la batalla del 19 de marzo,” a mysteriously power- de esa lectura en tu propuesta creativa, en tu cuento, en ful space rock wins the Battle of Azua, and future generations are tu novela; solamente una fracción de minutas, de esa confronted with a virtual record of the violence of the Dominican totalidad, de ese todo que tú captaste. (Cana) War of Independence. In “Juegodrox platónicos,” future Domini- cans attempt to solve the mystery of disappearing children during Going beyond Wikipedia-level historical knowledge and dedicat- the Trujillo era, while the dictator enlists science fiction writers and ing so much time to research with admittedly little payoff, Vlak artists to fortify his larger-than-life persona. Examining Vlak’s chal- exhibits a commitment to maintaining points of historical accu- lenging of Dominican history opens up the possibility of studying racy within his alternate histories. That only a small percentage contemporary Caribbean science fiction’s relationship to the future of the research makes it on a page shows the complexities of con- and the past. structing a world based on counterfactuals. The reliance on the Besides highlighting and examining Vlak’s particular literary historical record is key; as media scholar Matt Hills (2009) writes, achievements, another motive behind this project is to begin to science fiction’s “use of counterfactuals is hence one way in which fill a gap in recent scholarship on science fiction from the Spanish- it can destabilize ontological perspectives and compel readers to speaking Caribbean. While this subfield has seen a recent increase see ‘real’ histories in different, perhaps more critical ways” (437). in attention, scholarly work still tends to focus on work from Cuba, By playing with the reader’s general identification with historical and to a lesser extent on Puerto Rico. Despite the achievements events or figures, Vlak is able to both feed and disrupt their nar- of Vlak and his contemporaries, scholarship of Dominican science rative expectations. fiction tends to focus on just two texts: Rita Indiana Hernández’s More than a reorganization of facts, historical fiction has the 2015 novel La mucama de Omicunlé (Merced Hernández, 2017; Gar- ability to question the ways in which the past is institutionalized and rido Castellano, 2017; Pacheco 2017), and Junot Díaz’s 2012 short archived. In her work on contemporary Latin American historical story “Monstro” (González, 2015; Quesada, 2016). Vlak himself has novels, literary scholar Cecilia M. T. López Badano (2010) signals a added to the scholarship on Dominican science fiction, particularly new tendency within the genre to produce texts that “sitúan el dis- with his prologue to Futuros en el mismo trayecto del sol, “Un país curso histórico como un componente más de la construcción espe- en el mismo trayecto del futuro,” and his 2015 essay “Ciencia fic- culativa de la historia” (217). López Badano also notes that one way ción y fantasía dominicana: Más ficción y fantasía que realidad,” in in which Latin American authors have highlighted the constructed the Spanish science fiction magazine Tiempos Oscuros. Still, there nature of history is to include improbable causal relations and rup- is much more work to be done in the rigorous study of particular tures in time (217). Another effect of the fictionalization of history is Dominican science fiction texts, and this article’s analysis of Vlak’s the recognition of underrepresented or non-canonical stories and work attempts to call attention to and jumpstart this process. How- perspectives. As literary scholar Magdalena Perkowska (2008) ever, in order to better understand Vlak’s contributions, it is impor- writes on the new Latin American historical novel: tant to first understand the ways in which the alternate history as a genre can challenge narratives of linearity and predetermination La nueva función de la historiografía y de la novela within official histories. histórica consistiría en explorar las discontinuidades e intersecciones obliteradas por el proyecto de la Historical Fiction and Alternate Histories modernidad, recorrer las brechas sociales y recuperar la diversidad del pasado para buscar raíces históricas de Besides the Trujillo regime and the Battle of Azua, the stories of las heterogeneidades y racionalidades diferenciadoras Crónicas historiológicas feature references to many other histori- del presente. Si se admite el presente como una realidad cal moments and figures, including President Joaquín Balaguer, contradictoria, entonces la indagación del pasado no the 1655 attempted siege of the colonial city of Santo Domingo by tiene que ver con la legitimización de ese presente, sino British forces, and the 1842 Cap-Haïten earthquake. Though often con el reconocimiento histórico de las incoherencias y mixed with supernatural elements, Vlak’s science fiction remains discontinuidades en el tejido social. (105) firmly based in Dominican (and occasionally Haitian) history. In a 2016 interview, Vlak was asked if all of the historical references in Historical fiction can destabilize popular understandings of 14 • Latin American Literary Review Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas how the present was created, thus questioning the narrative of lin- tory posits a universe in which we are capable of acting and in which ear progress put forth by the project of modernity. our actions have significance” (111). As a popular genre, alternate Within the tradition of historical fiction from and about the histories allow for a wider engagement with popular history and Dominican Republic, the Trujillo and the Trujillato period have republic memory. ceived by far the most literary and scholarly attention. Late 20th and Helleckson delves further into the ways in which alternate his- early 21st-century representations of Trujillo by Dominican authors tory can question more than just the historical record: include Diógenes Valdez’s Retrato de dinosaurios en la era de Trujillo (1997), Miguel Holguín Veras’s Juro que sabré vengarme (1998), Mar- The alternate history as a genre speculates about such cio Veloz Maggiolo’s Uña y carne: Memorias de la virilidad (1999), topics as the nature of time and linearity, the past’s link to Efraim Castillo’s El personero (1999), and Ángela Hernández’s Mu- the present, the present’s link to the future, and the role danza de los sentidos (2004). This list is complemented by the works of individuals in the history-making process. Alternate of Dominican-American authors, such as Julia Álvarez’s In the Time histories question the nature of history and of causality; of Butterflies (1994) and Junot Díaz’s The Brief, Wondrous Life of Os- they question accepted notions of time and space; they car Wao (2007), along with notable novels like The Farming of Bones rupture linear movement; and they make readers rethink (1998) by Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat and La fiesta their world and how it has become what it is. They are a del chivo (2000) by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa.2 The authors critique of metaphors we use to discuss history. And they that have fictionalized the Trujillo regime have had an important role foreground the ‘constructedness’ of history and the role in the contestation of Dominican history. As scholar Ignacio López- narrative plays in this construction. (4) Calvo notes in God and Trujillo: Literary and Cultural Representations of the Dominican Dictator (2005), “The collective deconstruction of While Helleckson and others have often classified different types of the working dynamics of Dominican history through the negation alternate histories based on the outcomes of the historical changes, or affirmation of false national myths leads this group of authors to there is little evidence in Vlak’s alternate histories that anything has define, in different ways, the national psychology of the Dominican changed in the present. In the stories studied in this article, the me- nation” (147). López-Calvo also comments that by recuperating and teorite used in the Battle of Azua does not change the outcome of analyzing the authoritarian tactics laid out in these books, read- the Dominican War of Independence, nor does Trujillo’s funding of a ers can see the parallels with similar actions carried out by current department for speculative propaganda greatly affect the duration regimes and by transnational corporations. Studying Trujillo nar- or intensity of his reign. This article posits that these facts make the ratives allow for a closer look into not just the representations of collection less of a statement about the particular historical figures man himself but also the mechanisms, institutions, and rhetorical mentioned and more of a commentary on the way that history is structures built around him. constructed and remembered. Alternate histories like Crónicas his- While Crónicas historiológicas attempts a similar destabiliz- toriológicas that eschew traditional cause-and-effect patterns ques- ing of the history as these historical novels, Vlak’s incorporation tion the linear histories that often privilege a supposed narrative of speculative and unreal elements positions the texts within the clarity over diverse perspectives. broadly-defined subfield of alternate history. There is much debate The recent increase in scholarship about Latin American and among literary scholars about how to classify different kinds of al- Caribbean science fiction has also seen a rise in scholarly attention ternate histories, along with the place of other related or tangential given to alternate histories or uchronia from those regions. For practices of history bending, including the counterfactual history, example, Brian Price (2018) has investigated the role of uchronia the alternative history, and the uchronia.3 For instance, the specula- and steampunk in the work of Mexican author Bernardo Fernán- tive takes on history in Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas may best fit dez, while Kaitlin R. Sommerfeld and Juan C. Toledano (2015) have into the subcategory that Catherine Gallagher (2018) characterizes collaborated on a study of collective memory and dictatorship in as “‘secret’ histories that purport to explain the hidden private sto- Chilean science fiction. In his study of Argentine alternate histories, ries behind the official explanations of historical events” (2). Despite Luis Pestrani (2017) writes, “La ucronía es, como buena parte de la disagreements on nomenclature, there is more consensus concern- mayor ciencia ficción, narrativa especulativa que se afianza en un ing the potential social and political effects of the genre, including cambio conceptual—en este caso un punto de divergencia—para its “ability to shed light upon the evolution of historical memory” reflexionar sobre sus consecuencia sobre el hombre y la sociedad” (Rosenfeld 93), and how it “can be used to show various approaches (427). In the Caribbean, Javier de la Torre Rodríguez’s article “En to reading the historical record” (Stypczynski 464). Karen Helleck- busca de la ucronía perdida” (2012) cites Cuban texts like F. Mond’s son, in The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time (2001), ar- ¿Dónde está mi Habana? (1985) and Erick Mota’s Habana Under- gues that alternate history can also counteract understandings of guater (2010) in calling the alternate history “uno de los subgéne- history as predetermined and uncontrollable, creating a feeling of ros más complejos y transgresores dentro de la ciencia ficción” (8). historical and political agency among readers: “The alternate his- Yolanda Arroyo’s article “Ucronías y un paralelo entre el fenómeno Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas Latin American Literary Review • 15

Seva y el Código Da Vinci” (2008) highlights the twisting of history Vlak writes, “del 2075 al 2105, toda el área que se extendía desde in Luis López Nieves’s story “Seva” (1983): “Fue creada a partir de la desembocadura del Río Ozama hasta la Playa de Manresa, fue un hecho histórico que llenaba de inconformidad a un sector dentro suprimida…La antigua frontera sur de la ciudad clásica, delimitada del cual se identificaba el autor, por lo que se dio una torcedura a por la avenida George Washington, era ahora parte de sus dominios la historia y se creó el rellenado en prosa epistolar” (34). As previ- internos” (26). This redrawing of the city and coastline, a literal ex- ously mentioned, this rise in scholarly work on Latin American and pansion of Dominican territory, highlights science fiction’s capacity Caribbean speculative literature has largely ignored the Dominican to imagine futures that go beyond natural and political borders. The Republic; studying Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas offers insight into vertical urban geography has also been transformed by the Torre de how alternate history dialogues with the historical record within a Transmisión Ionográfica Tridimensional, the new tallest building in specifically Dominican context. Santo Domingo. The tower is part of a government complex that extends past the old coastline and is bordered by two present-day Virtual Histories and Public Empathy markers along the malecón: the monument to Antonio de Montesi- nos, who was known for speaking out against the abuse of the in- “Descargas de meteoritos en la batalla de 19 de marzo,” opens in digenous population in colonial Hipaniola; and the Obelisco Macho, the year 2144 with Luís and Blaise, two psientíficos tasked with cre- originally built to commemorate the city’s transition from Santo ating a virtual representation of the 1844 Battle of Azua, the first Domingo to Ciudad de Trujillo in 1935, but later repurposed as a major battle of the Dominican War of Independence. In their con- monument to the anti-Trujillo resistance. This future geography’s versations about their research and in their official presentation to connection to the past is noted in the story as Blaise contemplates the public, the narrative of the battle centers on the powerful mete- the 22nd-century urban landscape, “y lo hacía con unos ojos físicos orite that hit the island, was found and cared for by the Taíno peo- ubicados en el presente, pero con una mirada que deslizaba hacia ple, and eventually allowed an outmatched Dominican side to de- el pasado a bordo de la máquina de tiempo de un sueño despierto” feat the larger Haitian army. According to the researchers, the first (25). The reshaping of the city and the preservation or transforma- known account of the meteorite appeared in the writings of Hernán tion of certain monuments reflects this future’s relationship to the Cortés, who they also claim carried out his expedition through the history of Santo Domingo. Aztec kingdom looking not for gold but in search of a power simi- The reasoning behind these geographic expansions gives in- lar to that of the space rock. Confusing history and fiction further, sight into the ruling paradigms of this future world: “El cambio no the researchers cite actual lines from Christopher Columbus’s writ- se basó en una necesidad práctica de la superpoblación, sino en la ings as proof that he also came across the meteorite in his journeys: fiebre esteticista que se apoderó de los cerebros de todos los líderes “Igualmente la mayor parte de los caciques tiene tres piedras, a las locales de la Mitotecnocracia mundial desde la segunda mitad del cuales ellos y su pueblo muestra gran devoción” (16). This twisting siglo XXI” (26). The goal of the Dominican mythotechnocratic lead- of a historical text highlights the facility with which archival docu- ers is to make Santo Domingo into an international center of design ments can be manipulated and taken out of context. Other histori- and information, “en el cual el mismo sol tuviera que detenerse a cal figures mentioned in the winding lineage of the meteorite in- ofrendarle su admiración” (26). This future world extrapolates on clude: Diego Velázquez, colonial founder of Azua and first governor the current obsession with and rapid trajectory of technological ad- of Cuba; Nicolás de Ovando, the colonial administrator known for vancement, while also imagining a return to mythological or specu- his cruel slaughter of the Taíno people; Dominican writer and phi- lative arts and knowledge. The previously mentioned tower is a losopher Antonio Sánchez Valverde; and Emilio Prud’Homme, au- government building that houses institutions dedicated to issues of thor of the lyrics of the Dominican National Anthem. Vlak mixes Realismo Fantástico: “cuyo meta era diseñar un presente salido de factual elements into this fictional historical record; for example, las mentes que piensan en el futuro y rescatar los elementos míti- Prud’Homme was in fact forced to rewrite his anthem lyrics, though cos del material histórico registrado” (27). This aim materializes in not because the original version contained references to a magical various projects, including the nurturing of those with exceptional meteorite. The interconnections between these references and fan- minds and auras, along with a euthanasia program dedicated to tastical details force the reader to question how historical narratives safeguarding “lo Bueno, lo Bello y lo Verdadero” (27). These intersec- are written and consumed. tions between morality, design, and truth help the reader under- Just as Vlak’s historical counterfactuals are firmly based in fact, stand some of the dominant values of this future world and those his imagined future of Santo Domingo includes specific geographic who inhabit it, along with the context within which those people details. This follows Barney Warf’s (2002) assertion that “alterna- look back at history. tive histories are inherently geographical, just as all histories, ‘real’ Just as it has affected the fields of civic governance, neurology, or otherwise, unfold spatially, for different temporal trajectories and architectural design, mythotechnocracy has transformed the produce different maps of human behavior” (32). In explaining the ways in which history is studied. As part of the Academy of Histo- transformation of the city and the area that was once the malecón, riology, Luis and Blaise are tasked with creating virtual representa- 16 • Latin American Literary Review Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas tion of the battle for the videogame series Mitos Patrios that incor- …it is easy to imagine that in the near future we will see porates “los aspectos mitológicos, legendarios o paranormales… games unite the attention to environments and action que son deshechados en la version official de la Academia de His- with equal focus on dramatic and emotional detail. At toria y su juego Historias Patrias” (15). The inclusion of mythological that point gaming may provide a complex reenactment elements into the new historical record, beyond the mythotechno- of history that allows for emotional engagement and the cratic glorification of such elements as a way to prove Dominican potential for revision and reflection. (422) exceptionalism, can be connected to the nationalist project of au- thoring public memory. To further analyze this interaction between While it is impressive that a videogame can imbue in virtual partici- myth, memory, and nationalism, sociologist Duncan Bell (2003) in- pants the same feelings that were experienced by those actually in troduces the concept of the “mythscape”: the battle, this emphasis on emotional content over historical ac- curacy brings into question the motivation behind the large-scale …the temporally and spatially extended discursive realm official project to narrate Dominican history in this way. wherein the struggle for control of peoples’ memories The researchers present their work simultaneously to a pan- and the formation of nationalist myths is debated, con- el at the Academy of Historiology and to the public, projected tested and subverted incessantly. The mythscape is the throughout the city from the tower. As an attempt to author popu- page upon which the multiple and often conflicting na- lar memory, this involvement of the public suggests the difficulties tionalist narratives are (re)written; it is the perpetually of forcing a foundational history and mythology onto a nation; this mutating repository for the representation of the past for project works much better if the people believe that they have a say the purposes of the present. (66) in the matter. While this may appear as a democratization of history, Vlak’s worldview is much more cynical about the reasons behind As a constantly-changing discursive space, the mythscape has the the involvement of the public. The Academy of Historiology and its power to shape national histories, subsuming certain memories and partner, the computing company RVH3.D, seek approval of the his- privileging others (Bell 76). While Bell emphasizes the amorphous torical and mythological aspects of the presentation for economic and contested nature of this space, the institutionalization and gov- and political purposes: “La reacción positiva de los ciudadanos era la erning of the Mitos Patrios games in Vlak’s story represent an official señal de que los aspectos fantásticos rescatados de tal trozo de his- attempt to dominate public memory, thus highlighting the role of toria sería rentables para la compañía y funcionales para el manten- popular historical narratives in the consolidation and legitimization imiento de la conciencia histórica nacional.” (29). While other my- of state power. thotechnocratic projects seek to exalt platonic ideals of beauty and truth, the recreation of history is more concerned with functionality Though much of this story’s commentary on the future of Do- and profitability. Also, the Academy can only sign off on this latest minican history focuses on the content of Blaise and Luís’s game, representation of the Battle of Azua “si los dominicanos quedaban the form is equally intriguing. By creating an immersive virtual ex- impresionados por las imágenes recreadas de la investigación” (29). perience, participants have the opportunity to roam the battlefield, This wording suggests that the Dominican people can be swayed while cutaneous sensors allow them to feel some of the physical by the visual effects presented by the project, with less attention pains of warfare. Blaise refers to gameplay not as acting as histori- given to the historical content of the game. The push for consensus cal figures, but as being them: “Por supuesto que he sido cada uno surrounding this project leads to the real reason behind the invest- de esos personajes históricos…cuyos nombres brillan áureos en la ment in this sort of historical research: “Todo para enganchar al ter- memoria de la patria y también uno de esos héroes anónimos que ruño patrio las mentes de las nuevas generaciones: integrantes de a pedrá limpia rechazaron las huestes haitianas” (22). Similarly, Luís una juventud terrícola cada vez más identificada con la historia que uses the verbs ser and encarnar to characterize the relationship be- los pioneros espaciales…y no con la de sus respectivos países o pla- tween user and digital avatar, only once letting slip fingir in a way neta local.” (29). Fearing the loss of a connection to Dominican his- that would question the authenticity of the virtual experience. Both tory, and thus a loss of loyalty to Dominican nationalism, the game the Mitos Patrios and Historias Patrias series are meant to con- represents a desperate attempt by the authorities to preserve their nect with users on an emotional or affective level. The success of own place in the nation’s future. this project becomes clear near the end of the public presentation: As history and myth can both be contested discursive spaces, “El pavor avanzó como la peste en el ánimo de los decanos de la the presentation of the game has consequences outside of the offi- Academia de Historiología, y un trance petrificó los ojos de los es- cial political aims. One such effect is the rediscovery and reincorpo- pectadores del exterior. No fue diferente la reacción de cada uno ration of bits of language from Dominican slang now lost in this fu- de los que participaban en la batalla” (34). This transference of fear ture world. While watching nanobots work in his laboratory, Blaise reflects what videogame researcher Brian Rejak (2007) has written thinks to himself, “En ese infierno atómico ciertamente la cosa debe about the future of virtual history simulations, that: picar más que el sol de las doce,” a phrase that the narrator char- Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas Latin American Literary Review • 17 acterizes as an “atavismo lingüístico” (10). Luís later apologizes to ismo puede dar la impresión de ser nativo de la sociedad Blaise for using the term “compái galipote,” which he claims to have dominicana, congénito con la nacionalidad, pero es más picked up from on the virtual reality games (12). While this could be bien una importación que adquiere importancia política y seen as an extension of the official project of reinforcing Dominican por ello sobrevive. (Oliva 207) identity, Luis’s apologies for using such words suggests that historic slang is not respected within mythtechnocratic cultural hierarchies. By understanding antihaitianismo as an oppressive global collusion, The best example of this is when Luís, upon explaining a discovery the restaging of the Battle of Azua and the public’s momentary em- to Blaise, says “¡Capicua!!!...perdón, ¡Eureka! De nuevo mis discul- pathy toward the suffering Haitians take on added significance. Not pas” (23). In his enthusiasm, Luís shouts a term often used to end only does this fleeting solidarity go against official Dominican na- a game of dominoes. By apologizing and replacing it with an inter- tionalisms, it also separates them from larger political, economic, jection popularly associated with the Greek mathematician Archi- and cultural structures based on racism and xenophobia. medes, the reader is given insight into what aspects of Dominican As to not overstate the subversive potential of this virtual culture are privileged in this future world. Still, these restrictions game, the story ends with a more cynical look at this historical re- cannot stop the evolution of language through popular use which, interpretation, with Luís referring to the project as the successful along with references to traditional foods like mangú and sancocho, construction of “material para la creación de pan y circo destinado show the game’s ability to propagate historical cultural markers al consumo masivo” (37). The researcher points out that such in- that don’t necessarily align with the official objectives of this gov- stitutionalized historical narratives are meant to distract the public ernment project. from other issues, along with turning a profit. In this view, Blaise and The appearance of historical empathy represents an even Luís are participants in the coopting of academic work by economic more radical example of an unexpected effect of the game that and governing interests. This perspective also reshapes the function goes against its original nationalist objectives. While it was already of the speculative elements in this alternative history, turning the mentioned that public can experience the pains of battle and forge magical meteorite into a mere diversion. Still, the fact that public emotional connections with the virtual representation, there is a reaction can diverge from the nationalist project, along with Vlak’s surprising moment during Luís and Blaise’s presentation in which muddling of the historical record, suggests that both history and the audience begins to feel compassion for the fallen soldiers of myth should continue to be discursive spaces full of negotiation and the Haitian army. Upon seeing the Haitian side brutally killed by the reinterpretation in the future. cosmic powers of the meteorite, both the game and those watching pause. Vlak writes: Speculative Propaganda and Rhetorical Legacies

Sin haber sido programado, a las víctimas haitianas de While “Descargas de meteoritos en la batalla de 19 de marzo” of- la Batalla del 19 de Marzo de 1844, les fue dedicada, de fers a more overt speculation on the future of history, “Juegodrox manera póstuma, un minuto de tiempo subjetivo de platónicos” deals with the place of speculative fiction within the silencio en su honor…trescientos años de su muerte. historical record. The story is set sometime in the 2180s, and fol- Pues una vez finalizada la proyección…todo el mundo lows Norberto Deschamps, “encargado de la Diplomacia Solar de se quedó mirando hacia el espacio exterior con ojos la colonia de voluntarios dominicanos en la luna Titán del planeta encandilados. (35) Saturno” (197). This Dominican Colony on Titan is part of an attempt by Caribbean and Central American powers to recreate those Unlike the earlier fear felt for the Dominican side, this moment rec- regions in space; Norberto is said to not enjoy leaving the “pequeño ognizes Haitian suffering and offers users an unexpected space to paraíso de bondades tropicales ajo las curvas del domo cristalino mourn and reflect. Antihaitianismo has long been a part of official que albergaba el asiento del bloque de los países de Centroamérica Dominican nationalism, from the end of the Haitian Revolution in y el Caribe—CARIvidencia Espacial” (197). The imagining of such a 1804, through Trujillo’s anti-Haitian policies and violent actions, to community suggests that not only do these countries now have the the more recent deportations of Dominicans of Haitian descent.4 collective resources to finance such an exhibition, but also that con- However, the stigma toward Haiti and Haitians is not merely a Do- ditions on Earth may have reached a point that such explorations minican phenomenon. As scholar Silvio Torres-Saillant has argued, are necessary. In the story, Norberto has been tasked with studying antihaitianismo was originally an international construct coopted by and deciphering a polygonal object that has found its way to the the Dominican elite for its political utility: colonies. Once it is found that there are Dominican children born in the 1930s living inside each object, it becomes Norberto’s job to La elite dominicana heredó el antihaitianismo de las figure out how they traveled through time. The story also has a par- grandes potencias que regentaban el orden mundial al allel narrative, following Manuel Eusebio Navarro, a science fiction cual aspiraba entrar el recién nacido país…el antihaitian- writer who wrote propaganda during the Trujillo regime, and who 18 • Latin American Literary Review Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas at that time was tasked with investigating the unexplainable disap- sería el futuro; hecho que había que celebrarlo con pearances of several children. Along with demonstrating the utility una parafernalia propagandística cuyas desbordantes of science fiction for opening up new perspectives and possibilities, visiones estuviesen un paso más Adelante del futuro this alternate history suggests that the way history is written now mismo. ¿Y que mejor modelo para construirlo que el can affect the ways in which technologies are coded and construct- futuro que estaba siendo inventado en las revistas pulp ed in the future. de la época? (203) While much of the focus is put on the future of history and technology, the story also offers insight into a possible future of Recognizing science fiction’s ability to speculate on technological what it means to be Dominican. More than a diaspora, the Domini- advancements and the future of modernity, Trujillo manipulates it can colony on Titan represents an official and coordinated project to disseminate his vision for a new Dominican Republic, while also to expand the Dominican Republic even beyond planetary boundar- glossing over the violent means by which such a project would be ies. Though seemingly a forward-thinking project, this type of ter- realized. In Vlak’s story, Trujillo literally uses science fiction to paint raformation is intrinsically connected to history. As Chris Pak (2016) over the past, commissioning murals by illustrator Frank R. Paul to writes, “Terraforming narratives are preoccupied with the problem cover his new buildings. As his part of the project, Manuel began to of creating a new human history that can escape, resolve or tran- write the Aventuras en el Futuro Trujillista, starring El Jefe del Tiempo, scend the failures of the past” (205). This sort of worldbuilding is it- “un héroe viajero del tiempo que se aparecía en cualquier época self a way to create an alternate Dominican history. The setting also pasada o futuro en la que su país lo pudiera necesitar” (204). In a destabilizes what it means to be Dominican in the future, or alter- meeting about the missing children, Trujillo is so proud of his time- natively highlights the lack of stability in such identities at any time. traveling character that he suggests that Manuel’s books be sent to Norberto refers to his “condición de dominicano” (198-9), but upon the Dominican troops at Cayo Confites. Science fiction motifs are returning to Santo Domingo contemplates his “doble identidad manipulated to both promote a nationalist discourse and stoke the como terrícola y como dominicano” (244). Still, the children found dictator’s ego. within the mysterious objects are quickly identified as Dominican: In Vlak’s story, while Trujillo is amused by these supernatural “Las investigaciones posteriores revelaron que cada uno de los ni- powers, he is sure to assert that he is not the larger-than-life fig- ños era de origen dominicano…Según la contundente cláusula final ure that appears in Manuel’s stories. On the kidnappings, he says, del reporte científico, los niños nacieron a principio del generalísimo “Esos problemas no los puede resolver el personaje de sus historias Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, en la década treinta del Siglo XX” futuristas, El Jefe Trujillo, sino el Trujillo de carne y hueso que usted (199). However, it is also noted that their particular genetic struc- tiene en frente” (207). While it may seem obvious that Trujillo did ture is no longer found in nature: “eran humanos naturales hasta en not in fact have superpowers, some have argued that part of the el último átomo de su organismo; sin modificación genética a nivel authoritarian’s cultural dominance stemmed from his representa- embrionario o nanobots reguladores de los ciclos vitales de sus cé- tion as an almost mythical figure. As Lauren Derby writes in The lulas” (200). While it was possible to genetically identify the children Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era as Dominican, they no longer bare genetic resemblance to future, of Trujillo (2009): modified Dominicans like Norberto. The use of alternate history in “Juegodrox platónicos” suggests that biological lineages can been As Trujillo’s inner sanctum became a virtual secret society, replaced by shared historical trauma. the veil of invisibility appeared to augment the powers with- Just as the creation of mytho-historical videogames in the in, as the “milling of the pretense and reputation of secrecy” previous story was meant as a way to control national memory, made the secrets appear to grow in force as well as form. Manuel’s storyline shows the role that speculative fiction can play “Secretism” thus generated popular narratives about the in authoritarian propaganda. Manuel, who writes under the pseud- occult and even magical powers of the ubiquitous yet invis- onym Orvuz Nasklit, works for the fictional “visionaria misión del ible inner circle—such as the stories about Trujillo’s “animal Departamento para la Propaganda Futurista del Régimen del magnificence,” about his never sweating, and about the evil Benefactor de la Patria, adscrito al Ministerio de Educación” (203). glass eye of his right-hand man, Anselmo Paulino. People Vlak once again cites actual events to ground his alternate history, knew that Trujillo was up to something, but they did not al- citing the 1930 Hurricane San Zenon that destroyed Santo Domin- ways know exactly what. (4) go as the starting point for Trujillo’s interest in science fiction. As Manuel explains: While Derby is referring to the creation of a symbolic superhuman Trujillo, Vlak’s story takes that same goal and turns it into an official Nadie dudó de que el Generalísimo estaba transformando project. Seeing Trujillo revel in the accomplishments of his science la fisonomía propia de la Edad de Piedra de la ciudad fiction alter ego suggests a sort of human insecurity to which he en un augurio de concreto, acero y cristal de los que would never admit. Also, despite the fact that much of “Juegodrox Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas Latin American Literary Review • 19 platónicos” is set in the Trujillo era, the dictator’s presence is limited que le espantaba, aunque fuera a través de una historia to a single meeting. This decentering of Trujillo allows for a clearer imaginativa; se sentía la urgencia de un alma abrumada view of the mechanizations and institutions through which he accu- por el fardo pesado de una siniestra revelación y su mulated power. Like the Trujillo narratives mentioned earlier, Vlak esperanza en las mentes del futuro. (229) demystifies the dictator and puts into question how the history of his reign is recorded and remembered. Beyond these atmospheric concerns, Manuel’s story also pointed Manuel, along with real-life Dominican folklorist Edna Garrido the futuristic scientists in the direction of two important aspects de Boggs, were invited to the meeting because conventional think- of the mystery: platonic solids and the children’s game hopscotch. ing had been unable to account for the disappearances. The writer While thankful for this resource, the researchers are still surprised uses the opportunity and audience with Trujillo to promote the use- by the fact that Manuel chose to communicate them in the form of fulness of science fiction beyond propaganda. Manuel is convinced science fiction. They ask, “¿Acaso descubrió algo demasiado pelig- that the kidnappings are actually alien abductions: “Mi opinión…es roso como para revelarlo a través de un género ordinario de divul- que miremos hacia arriba. Observemos el cielo, pues es casi seguro gación como el ensayo?” (231). This suggests that another benefit que en él está la respuesta de esta desapariciones…Mi General, es- of telling bits of history through speculative fiction is the ability to toy casi seguro de que dichas desapariciones de deben a incursiones navigate political censorship. When labeled as a short story, Man- de naves extraterrestres en nuestro suelo” (206-7). But more than uel’s text is able to get closer to the truth behind the abductions, just as a way to solve the case, Manuel makes the case that science without raising suspicions at the propaganda office. Highlighting fiction allows one to understand the world from different perspec- the importance of Manuel’s story in future historical and scientific tives. He says, “Estamos frente a un fenómeno único y misterioso; research promotes the idea that historians and readers should be uno que requiere de una facultad que ha estado gritando a todo pul- open to a wider variety of texts, including literary ones, in order to món en nuestro interior: la imaginación. Su naturaleza fantástica get a more complete understanding of an era. necesita ser abordada con una actitud abierta a las explicaciones Norberto’s investigation, aided by Manuel’s story, led him to fantásticas” (206). By stoking the imagination of its audience, sci- reexamine the genetic structures of the abducted children: “Se ence fiction provides the vocabulary for analyzing a questioning descubrieron algunas anomalías inexplicables en la codificación de situations from new angles. This conflicts with the original aims su información genética…Era como si se hubiese robado alguna in- of Trujillo’s speculative propaganda, which seeks to offer easy an- formación específica de su ADN” (225). This discovery, along with swers and distract the public with promises of an advanced, more Manuel’s reference to platonic solids, leads Norberto to investigate comfortable daily life. More insight into the innovative potential of the cyberspace community El Eón de Platón. Instead of the interac- Manuel’s science fiction arrives later in the story, as Norberto and tive virtual reality experience like the Mitos Patrios game, Norborto his colleague Blaise notice that the author successfully predicted is confronted with an AI names Timeo, programmed to be concerned the DNAs double helix structure in a story written years before its with future survival. Timeo explains, “La clave de nuestra superviven- formal discovery by Watson and Crick (231). cia como especie está en el desarrollo de una flexibilidad en nuestro Other than the more abstract function of offering new -per genoma para asimilar genes de otras especies” (238). The AIs use of spectives, both Manuel and Norberto suggest that science fiction the terminology “our survival as a species” expands the possibilities can be used for filling in gaps in the official historical record. While for this world’s vision for future of humanity, as that collective could defending his idea that the kidnappings were alien abductions, refer to humankind, or a sort of human-computer hybrid. Timeo ad- Manuel brings up the supposed alien landing Roswell, New Mexico mits to using the hopscotch game to capture Dominican children in in 1947, saying that there was “información que los gobiernos so the 1940s, a detail found in Manuel’s story, and to mine their genetic cuidan muy bien de que no llegue a oídos del público y que solo los material. The AI explains that the Dominican Republic’s history of lectores de literatura especulativa se enteran a través de una histo- genetic mixing made these children the perfect sources of raw maria supuestamente imaginativa” (215). Centuries later, as Norberto terial for the survival project. “La composición genética del pueblo and Blaise attempt to understand how the Dominican children dominicano fue la solución a nuestro problema, ya que en ella yacía traveled into the future, Manuel’s story “El Ataque de los Juegos la respuesta a nuestra búsqueda de un ejemplo orgánico natural que Alienígenas” becomes a primary resource. While not all the details no obstante siendo fruto de la mezcla genética sobrevivió como una in Manuel’s text were accurate, he was able to hone in on the senti- variedad poderosa de la especie” (240). While dealing with artificial ment of the time period: intelligence and time travel, this futuristic plan relies on timeless hor- rors of resource exploitation and colonial violence. Había codificado alguna información muy seria en While the kidnapping of children by an AI initially appears like esa historia; la atmósfera que se sentía al leerla era the reiteration of the classic science fiction trope of machines rebel- verdaderamente magnética, como si el autor hubiese ling against their human creators, Timeo’s justification for the kid- forzado a sí mismo a dejar por escrito una experiencia nappings brings Vlak’s story back to its critique of history. In explain- 20 • Latin American Literary Review Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas ing to Norberto the exceptional nature of the Dominican genome, recording history might become. The overt inclusion of mythic ele- the AI outlines the country’s history of genetic mixing: ments points to a political project that asserts the state’s role as the primary author of public memory. The keeping and dissemination of El descubrimiento aparentemente fortuito del Nuevo national histories is understood as both a move to consolidate pow- Mundo y sus razas indígenas; su conquista y coloni- er and a source of profit. The commercialization of history is dis- zación por los europeos; la integración en el proceso de guised as democratization; by converting a historical narrative into construcción de los nuevos pueblos de otros elementos a videogame, the user receives the allusion of agency, even though raciales como el africano, dieron como resultado, espe- the narrative is just as proscribed as in a traditional text. Whether cialmente en el Caribe, un Nuevo hombre que no solo era or not the project lives of to its participatory and inclusive rhetoric, fruto de una mezcla de culturas diferentes, sino también both the virtual reality aspect and the mythological additions to the de una mezcla genética diversa que, en el caso de los do- historical record represent an effort to have citizens feel a history minicanos, ostentaba una manifestación tan pintoresca instead of learning it. While this may be successful in harnessing a que podía desafiar los matices del espectro electromag- nationalist sympathy, Vlak’s story also suggests an involuntary em- nético. (239) pathy for the opposing side as an unintended consequence. As with alternative history in general, this twist highlights the fact that no This history erases the violences involved in this mixing; the discov- historical records are final or uncontested. ery of the New World and Indigenous races are called “fortuitous,” Though not as explicitly concerned with the creation of history while African elements were “integrated” into the gene pool. The fi- as the previous story mentioned in this article, Vlak’s “Juegodrox nal product is not only described as “picturesque,” but also granted platónicos” demonstrates the ambiguous place of speculative fic- supernatural powers. This exoticization of the Dominican children tions within historical narratives. On the one hand, the story shows is used to validate violent kidnappings and is based on a record Trujillo leaning on science fiction motifs of heroism and modernity that glorifies nationalist discourse rather than interrogate histori- to cover up the violences of his regime; on the other, Manuel’s back- cal truths. As this historical vision was uploaded to the AI by human ground in science fiction allowed him to get much closer to the real programmers, Vlak’s story speculates on the wide-ranging conse- cause of the kidnappings than any of his closed-minded colleagues, quences that such histories can have in other fields, including sci- and his story was eventually considered an invaluable part of the ence and technology. The erasure of past violences allows for the historic record. Not only does this story ask readers to recognize the historical justification of similar dehumanization in the present and connections between history, speculative fiction, and propaganda, future. By speculating on how such erasures could be programed it also suggests that these rhetorical tools are but few of many into futuristic technologies, “Juegodrox platónicos” suggests that within a system based on language and code. If historical violences such historical erasures can infiltrate all types of language and cod- can be erased from the historical record, then dangerous structures ing. The future of history is thus positioned as inseparable from the can be coded into our future technologies. Written histories and sci- futures of writing and technology. ence fictions are equally useful at exposing or combatting inequali- ties as they are at promoting or reinforcing them. Writing alternate Conclusions histories thus represents more than an academic experiment, but a chance to challenge the narrative structures that make future op- In its futuristic recreation of the Battle of Azua, “Descargas de me- pressions possible. teoritos en la batalla del 19 de marzo” speculates on what the act of

NOTES

1 The 2017 version of Crónicas historiológicas, published by Disonante, lego Cuiñas and Efraín (2008); Lifshey (2008); Caminero-Santangelo (2009); is the latest and most elaborate version of this collection. Two shorter ver- Hickman (2009); Segura Rico (2009); Schlote (2010); Sepulveda (2013); Ser- sions of the collection were also published in 2014: Crónicas de Ouroboros rata (2016). by La Secta de los Perros, and the ebook Crónicas historiológicas by Alfa 3 For more on these debates, see Helleckson (2001) and Gallagher Eridiani. This article will refer to the 2017 version, as the added stories give a (2018). more complete view of Vlak’s engagement with Dominican history. 4 See Tavernier (2010) for more on the history of cultural and political 2 The list of recent scholarly work on Trujillo and trujillato narratives is antihaitianismo in the Dominican Republic. extensive, and includes: Bruni (2002); Rich (2002); López-Calvo (2005); Gal- Future Visions of Dominican History in Odilius Vlak’s Crónicas historiológicas Latin American Literary Review • 21

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El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman

Ana María Pozo de la Torre The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

ABSTRACT: Este artículo analiza el ethos errante en El viajero del siglo (2009) de Andrés Neuman. Con los conceptos de fuerza centrífuga y fuerza centrípeta, elaborados por M. Bahktin y aplicados a la literatura latinoamericana por Fernando Aínsa, conceptualizo el ethos errante como aquella literatura latinoamericana contemporánea que se construye como fuga y desplazamiento de la tradición, pero que al mismo tiempo regresa a ella. En su movimiento centrífugo, exploro la manera en que El viajero del siglo se caracteriza por la desterritorialización y lo transnacional. En su movimiento centrípeto, analizo la naturaleza metaliteraria de la novela y la manera en que presenta una revisión histórica de la literatura latinoamericana de un siglo al incorporar motivos del modernismo, las vanguardias centradas en la escritura de Borges, y el Boom. Finalmente, sostengo que el ethos errante se relaciona con la posición ambivalente de Andrés Neuman como hijo de migraciones culturales, y representa una nueva manera de ser latinoamericano.

KEY WORDS: Contemporary Latin American Literature, desterritorialization, transnational, tradition, Andrés Neuman.

PALABRAS CLAVES: literatura latinoamericana contemporánea, desterritorialización, transnacional, tradición, Andrés Neuman.

El viajero del siglo (2009) de Andrés Neuman (Buenos Aires, 1977), la constitución de las distintas formas de lo humano (15). El ethos que novela ganadora del premio Alfaguara, tiene como personaje se prefigura en Hans sería la errancia, la desterritorialización y la idea a Hans, un viajero que entiende el trayecto –continuo, cíclico y de una tradición viajera. El ethos errante representa una literatura que siempre inacabado– como un mecanismo creativo, definitorio y se construye como fuga y desplazamiento de la tradición, pero que al necesario de la escritura. Hans lleva consigo un arcón con libros, mismo tiempo regresa a ella, puesto que el regreso se convierte en otra antologías de poesía y diccionarios, que funciona como metáfora modalidad del desplazamiento. Este doble movimiento centrífugo y de una tradición viajera. Cuando llega a Wandernburgo, ciudad centrípeto, como diría Fernando Aínsa (Identidad 16), es característico imaginaria en la que se desarrolla la novela, el cochero que lo ha del ethos errante. llevado le dice: “¿Qué lleva aquí, un muerto?” y Hans responde: “Un El propósito de este trabajo es analizar cómo el ethos muerto no... unos cuantos” (16). Se introduce la idea de que en todo errante, viaje centrífugo y regreso centrípeto, permite entender viaje siempre se acarrea algo. En el caso de Hans es la literatura coordenadas claves de El viajero del siglo. Aínsa define el de los muertos, la tradición, la que se convierte en un mecanismo movimiento centrípeto como un viaje hacia lo primordial y ‘raigal’ para interpretar/habitar el mundo, es decir, para continuar el viaje. mientras que el centrífugo sería un viaje hacia el universalismo En otro momento, cuando una muchacha le pregunta qué lleva en (Identidad 13).1 En la introducción de Literatura más allá de la nación, el arcón, Hans responde: “El mundo entero” (143). El arcón guarda Ángel Esteban y Jesús Montoya Juárez sostienen que la literatura la posibilidad de la experiencia, pero cifrada en la memoria. Más latinoamericana contemporánea permite reflexionar sobre cómo se adelante el personaje se revela como un traductor y sostiene: redefinen los territorios en el contexto de la globalización, “pues no “Trabajo traduciendo, eso puede hacerse en cualquier sitio” (117). hay desterritorialización sin reterritorialización” (9). Estos críticos Sin embargo, para traducir necesita del arcón. retoman las nociones de lo centrípeto y lo centrífugo de Aínsa, y El arcón de Hans es una biblioteca móvil que crece en el viaje y observan cómo, en la producción actual, hay dos fuerzas que inciden, representa una escritura en movimiento que se escribe fuera de un con igual potencia, en la escritura. Habría, por una parte, una fuerza territorio específico, en un espacio de excepción, y que sólo enese centrífuga que difumina las fronteras locales y, por otra, una fuerza tránsito encuentra su morada: su ethos. El ethos de Hans se construye centrípeta que lleva a que en la literatura vuelva a aparecer lo local, a partir de una suerte de paradoja o, quizás, un doble movimiento: “reescribiéndose lo nacional desde una óptica posnacional” (9). el viaje y el desplazamiento, por un lado, y la formación de una Dicho de otro modo, la globalización ha despertado interés en lo morada, por otro. Retomo el concepto de ethos, propuesto por Bolívar local justamente porque ha posibilitado que se cuestionen aquellos Echeverría, como el proyecto de construcción de una morada, es decir, presupuestos que delimitaron, en su momento, el ámbito de lo un sentido o una intención que se repite y que guía a lo largo del tiempo nacional y aquello que construía la tradición nacional. El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman Latin American Literary Review • 23

En El viajero del siglo, las fuerzas centrífugas y centrípetas El hecho de que la novela esté ambientada en la Alemania del se representan en la ciudad de Wandernburgo y en el organillero. siglo XIX no es una casualidad. En ese periodo, tal como sostiene Cuando Hans llega a la ciudad sólo desea quedarse por una noche. Jorge Volpi al retomar lo propuesto por Benedict Anderson en Sin embargo, se siente cautivado por la música de un organillero, Imagined Comunities, se construye la noción de literatura nacional: símbolo de la literatura, y decide permanecer en la ciudad. Después “lenguas y literaturas pasaron a engrosar la artillería ideológica de su estadía en Wandernburgo estará marcada por el amor a Sophie, los gobiernos burgueses” (2025). La institución literaria, convertida una joven de la burguesía, con la que empieza a traducir a autores en propiedad privada de cada país, se uniría para siempre con el contemporáneos. Analizaré, primero, el viaje centrífugo, en el que proyecto de la modernidad burguesa y con el concepto de nación. Neuman proyecta en su novela nociones como la desterritorialización En El viajero, Hans es trasunto de Neuman o, si se quiere, su y la inestabilidad de la identidad latinoamericana. Después, proyección ficcional. 5 En la parte final de este trabajo se verá la examinaré el regreso centrípeto, en el que el autor deja en ella manera en que Neuman, al igual que Hans, cuestiona la relación huellas de la tradición literaria hispanoamericana y plantea, en clave entre país y literatura. Por el momento, conviene señalar que Hans narrativa, una revisión histórica de la literatura latinoamericana de introduce, desde su oficio como traductor y mediador cultural, la un siglo –ahí, tal vez, reside el misterio del título– en cuatro tiempos: reflexión de que un escritor no puede “encarnar a un país ni describir el modernismo, las vanguardias centradas en la escritura de Borges, su esencia” (95). En una de las tertulias que se realizan en el salón el Boom y la literatura contemporánea. Por último, relacionaré de Sophie, cuando hablan sobre Alemania, Hans expresa que “si ambos movimientos con la posición ambivalente de Andrés alguien llega a representar la sensibilidad de un país, si un músico Neuman –similar a la de muchos escritores latinoamericanos que o un poeta logra esa identificación, será siempre algo casual, un escriben fuera de su lugar de origen– como hijo de migraciones fenómeno histórico y no un programa metafísico” (95). Con el culturales. deseo de proveer un ejemplo, añade: “¿O de verdad ustedes creen En una época en la que la literatura se caracteriza por sus que Bach componía desde su alemanidad?” (95). Con esta pregunta, historias mínimas (13), como defendían Alberto Fuguet y Sergio Neuman –el latinoamericano– crea un personaje extranjero –Hans– Gómez en el prólogo de McOndo, y en la que, según Aínsa, “se ha para cuestionar, en el mismo periodo de gestación, la noción de que perdido la ambición de escribir ‘la novela total’ o de hacer alarde entre literatura y nación exista una relación indisoluble. de un catálogo de técnicas novelescas” (Palabras 9), El viajero ha El lector asume que Hans es alemán, sin embargo, nunca se sido entendida, por su aspecto formal, como una novela total.2 llega a saber exactamente de dónde es. Cuando Sophie le pregunta Según la crítica, la novela se acercaría a las novelas totales del en dónde nació, él responde: “...no estoy acostumbrado a hablar Boom. Sin embargo, a diferencia de éstas, El viajero no tiene una de eso. Primero porque el origen de una persona es un simple visión totalizante. Es cierto que existe una semejanza formal – accidente, somos del lugar donde estamos... y segundo, mi querida la hibridez génerica–, no obstante, ésta sólo demuestra que la Sophie, porque si alguna vez contara ciertas cosas, nadie me llamada novela total no es patrimonio exclusivo del Boom.3 La creería” (179). Hans no se identifica como alemán y en el transcurso novela de Neuman se inscribe en un nuevo escenario que cuestiona de la novela insiste continuamente en que él es un viajero y, como los esencialismos críticos que quisieron entender la literatura como tal, desea ser siempre extranjero: “Lo mejor, dijo Hans, sería ser un reflejo de patria. A través de una supuesta novela total, Neuman extranjero. ¿Extranjero de dónde?, dijo el organillero. Extranjero, se problematiza la noción de espacio como locus estable y símbolo encogió de hombros Hans, así, a secas” (121). La extranjería de Hans identitario. no se opone a lo nacional como noción geográfica. El ser extranjero, Esta problematización, en su movimiento centrífugo, para Hans, implica adquirir una conciencia histórica distinta que la distancia la novela del canon de la tradición latinoamericana: El de sus contemporáneos: una perspectiva crítica para cuestionar viajero está situada en Alemania y la estética narrativa recuerda la excesiva alemanidad que encuentra en algunos habitantes de la novela europea decimonónica. Aínsa sostiene que la literatura Wandernburgo. En las tertulias en casa de Sophie, por ejemplo, latinoamericana escrita después de la década de 1960 se caracteriza Hans debate continuamente con el profesor Mietter que encarna por ser una literatura transnacional. En ella se refleja “la importancia una visión nacionalista: de las figuras del éxodo y el exilio, exaltación de la condición nomádica, las nociones de desarraigo y del ‘artista migratorio’, Herr Hans, continuó el profesor Mietter, a mí lo que me como componentes de la identidad plural y de ‘lealtades múltiples’ extraña es que usted, que tanto nos habla de libertades en el marco de los procesos de globalización” (Palabras 11). Después individuales, se resista a admitir que los nacionalismos de Bolaño, la literatura actual problematizaría de manera central la expresan la individualidad de los pueblos. Eso habría que idea de pertenencia a un espacio delimitado que pudiera originar verlo, dijo Hans, a veces pienso que los nacionalismos una identidad estable y definida; cuestionaría, además, la idea de son otra forma de suprimir a los individuos. (75) patria o, más bien, la construcción moderna de Estado-Nación; y la supuesta exigencia de que un escritor sea un escritor nacional.4 Si Hans cuestiona la alemanidad como programa metafísico 24 • Latin American Literary Review El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman y como expresión de la individualidad de un pueblo, Neuman, a generally employ for one-upmanship when confronted través de Hans, cuestiona la latinoamericanidad. Con este gesto, by identity politics. (13) Neuman introduce en el origen de la modernidad literaria –la Europa decimonónica– un discurso alternativo: la posibilidad de Estos autores han interiorizado la tradición latinoamericana. Si ellos entender la identidad (alemana o latinoamericana) fuera de un viajan, si ellos se desterritorializan, la tradición viaja con ellos. Tal asidero espacial. La narrativa trasnacional de El viajero convierte a vez por esta razón Corral concibe como problemático que se aplique la novela en una “born translated novel” (Walkowitz 3), puesto que el concepto de literatura mundial a este conjunto de escritores, la literatura no está ligada de manera exclusiva a un país. Por otra puesto que en ellos persiste, acaso como huella, la tradición.7 parte, mediante la traducción que Hans y Sophie hacen, el oficio del Es decir, habría en su literatura –globalizada, extraterritorial, traductor se revela como centro de la creación literaria y así también cosmopolita– una huella del origen. Como Hans, es una literatura se problematiza la pertenencia de la literatura a una lengua y un que lleva a cuestas el arcón de la memoria. país único (Walkowitz 6). El cuestionamiento de la relación entre En la creación de Wandernburgo, en consecuencia, se país, lengua y literatura conlleva a que la novela reclame el mundo encuentran motivos que remiten a la tradición hispanoamericana. como material simbólico.6 La ciudad y la figura del organillero dialogan con motivos presentes En El viajero, la narrativa de lo trasnacional se ve, sobre en las obras de autores que en su momento definieron el canon todo, en la creación de Wandernburgo: ciudad imaginaria y móvil del siglo XX: Rubén Darío, Jorge Luis Borges y Gabriel García cuyas fronteras son indefinidas. La (im)posible ciudad alemana se Márquez. Este gesto no corresponde a una simple casualidad. presenta como un territorio que no sólo es fronterizo, sino que es Neuman encuentra en “El rey burgués” de Darío, “El Inmortal” de frontera. Desde esta arista, el espacio narrativo complejiza también Borges y en Cien años de soledad de García Márquez un estímulo la categoría de identidad que deja de ser una construcción sólida. Si para interpretar los problemas que la globalización plantea. Desde todo lo sólido se desvanece en el aire, como decía Marshall Berman, diferentes aristas, estos escritores pusieron en crisis las mismas la relación de Hans con la ciudad se convierte en un símbolo que nociones que el canon y la crítica de la literatura actual cuestiona: la representa la puesta en crisis de cualquier enunciado fijo sobre la dicotomía entre tradición y ruptura, entre lo cosmopolita y lo local, identidad. entre centro y periferia; y entre una literatura latinoamericana y, al En su primer día en Wandernburgo, por ejemplo, Hans mira mismo tiempo, universal. Por otra parte, todos ellos transcodificaron una pequeña acuarela de paisaje borroso en su cuarto. Se acerca, le elementos de otras tradiciones. Así como Darío re-escribió la poesía da vuelta, y descubre que en realidad es un espejo. Hans, durante el francesa de los parnasianistas y los simbolistas, García Márquez año que permanece en la ciudad, se mirará en ese espejo cuyo revés introdujo la estética de la novela moderna –Kafka, Faulkner– al es una representación. Neuman introduce, de manera misteriosa, territorio americano, y Borges, cómo ya tanto se ha señalado, la idea de que la identidad es una representación más, igual de utilizó motivos de toda la literatura, Neuman incorpora elementos borrosa que un paisaje de acuarela. Casi al final de la novela, la de la tradición latinoamericana en una novela que, en apariencia, no acuarela se romperá, y Hans verá cómo el “espejito se había partido es latinoamericana. en varios pedazos” (483). Neuman muestra que la identidad no es Asimismo, todos esos autores vivieron encrucijadas epocales estable y corre el riesgo de resquebrajarse, pero también señala en las que la literatura tenía la necesidad de volver a definirse. Si cómo la identidad estaría compuesta por fragmentos diversos y, los modernistas hablaron del fin del arte y por ello reclamaron un por definición, sería siempre transitoria: dispuesta a romperse para espacio del arte como torre de marfil, los escritores del Boom, tal ser construida de nuevo. como ha señalado Carlos Fuentes, se enfrentaron a la muerte de Ahora bien, aun cuando los escritores actuales escriben la novela (9). Neuman, al igual que sus predecesores, se encuentra ficciones fuera de su lugar de origen y no tienen como emblema en una encrucijada en que la literatura vuelve a definirse. Por este la noción de literatura latinoamericana, no por ello dejan a un lado motivo, los textos con los que Neuman dialoga, al igual que su el tema de la tradición. Wilfrido H. Corral, en su introducción a The propia novela, tienen un carácter metaliterario. Contemporary Spanish-American Novel. Bolaño and After, considera La ciudad de Wandernburgo dialoga, específicamente, con la que el nuevo grupo generacional de escritores del que Neuman creación de Macondo y con la borgeana Ciudad de los Inmortales. forma parte Al igual que Macondo, Wandernburgo funciona como un mundo en pequeño. Aínsa sostiene que la fundación de aquellos microcosmos, are vastly changing what is meant by ‘national’ literatures, aquellos pueblos emblemáticos como Macondo, Comala, Santa fitting in imperfectly with the new definitions of ‘world María, Rumí, tienen fronteras que los protegen de influencias literature’ including the ‘world republic of letters’. externas (Topos 234). Wandernburgo, en cambio, si bien funciona Blatantly urbane and open, these novelists cannot let como un microcosmos y, en estricto sentido, tiene límites, estos go entirely of personal codes that can frequently be no actúan como fronteras porque toda la ciudad es una frontera. construed as their ‘Inner Latin American’, a condition they El microcosmos de la tradición latinoamericana se transcodifica en El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman Latin American Literary Review • 25 una ciudad cerrada que, sin embargo, no tiene asidero espacial.8 creyó perderse por las callejuelas inclinadas, otras tantas regresó En una de sus conversaciones con Álvaro –un español que al mismo punto” (20). Hans incluso llega a pensar que el plano de llegó por unos días, pero que lleva más de diez años viviendo en la ciudad se desordena mientras todos duermen (22) y empieza a Wandernburgo–, Hans escucha cómo, a lo largo de su historia y experimentar cómo aquello que él “recordaba haber atravesado y debido a distintos enfrentamientos políticos, la ciudad ha quedado que debía desembocar en una avenida se interrumpía en una tapia del lado de Prusia o del de Sajonia. Al escuchar este relato, “Hans ciega” (23). Su trayecto por la ciudad rememora las sensaciones de se sintió en casa por primera vez...” (85). Para él, Wandernburgo aquellos que han atravesado los laberintos borgeanos: la casa de es un lugar idóneo porque se re-significa constantemente, no sólo Asterión y, sobre todo, la Ciudad de los Inmortales. debido a que sus límites se difuminan sino también por tratarse de Con esta última, además de la sensación de abandono –Hans una ciudad que se mueve. Esto lo notamos con mayor claridad en debe convencerse de que Wandernburgo está habitada– comparte el paratexto, posterior a los epígrafes y anterior a la narración, en la presencia de un río que no es un río. En el cuento de Borges, el río donde leemos: de los Inmortales es descrito como “un arroyo impuro, entorpecido por escombros y arena” (14), es decir, por pasado y tiempo. El Nulte, Wandernburgo: ciudad móvil sit. aprox. entre los ant. el río imaginario de Wandernburgo, es también un río viejo: Est. de Sajonia y Prusia. Cap. del. ant. principado del m. nombre. Lat. N y long. E indefinidas por desplazamiento Y discurriendo entre todo, sigiloso testigo, serpenteaba (...) Hidrogr.: r, Nulte, no navegable. Activ. econ.: cult. el Nulte. El Nulte era un río anémico, sin caudal para de trigo e ind. Textil (...) Pese a los testim. de cronistas y ser navegado. Sus aguas parecían viejas, resignadas. viajeros, no se ha det. su ubicación exacta. Custodiado por dos hileras de álamos, el Nulte surcaba el valle como pidiendo ayuda. Visto desde lo alto de las La novela no inicia con la creación del espacio, como lo hacía Cien colinas, era un rizo de agua doblado por el viento. Menos años de soledad, sino que el espacio la antecede: existe de antemano. un río que el recuerdo de un río. El río de Wandernburgo. En la novela de Gabriel García Márquez, Macondo es un mundo que (28) se crea en el proceso de escritura; ahí las cosas todavía carecen de nombre y el lector asiste al proceso de creación que se desenvuelve Cerca de su orilla se encuentra la cueva del organillero: mientras lee. En cambio, en el caso de El viajero, la génesis fecunda semejante a los nichos de piedra en los que descansan los Inmortales. del microcosmos se convierte en una entrada enciclopédica: se ha El organillero se baña y bebe el agua del Nulte; y su suciedad lo pasado de la exuberancia al minimalismo y, al mismo tiempo, de un hace semejante a los trogloditas borgeanos, aquellos “hombres mundo en el que las cosas todavía no tenían nombre a un mundo en de piel gris, de barba negligente, desnudos” (Borges 15). A Álvaro, el que todo ya tiene nombre. Todo, también la escritura, pre-existe. por ejemplo, que no puede reconocer la esencia del organillero, Desde esta perspectiva, se podría decir que, en el mundo que se le sorprende la fascinación que siente Hans por aquel “viejo que crea en Wandernburgo, toda escritura será una re-escritura. De ahí vivía callado la mayor parte del tiempo y que tendía a confundir la que no sea casualidad que Hans sea un traductor: un intérprete de austeridad con bañarse muy poco” (282). Por otra parte, al igual que lo ya escrito, y que la labor literaria se presente como traducción. Argos, el troglodita que lo espera fuera de la ciudad y que le revelará Tal vez por ese motivo, y siguiendo uno de los preceptos de la que es Homero –el origen de la literatura occidental– , el organillero literatura clásica, la novela comienza in medias res. Hans, que había tiene una “apariencia de absoluta paz con el pasado, como si ya visto desde el carruaje una “pequeña ciudad que parecía desplazarse hubiera sido feliz y no esperase nada más del tiempo” (282). Al igual con ellos” (15), se queda dormido, y después, como si sólo hubieran que Argos, que dibuja signos irreconocibles en la arena, mientras pasado unos segundos, aparece enfrente a la ciudad: “A medida duerme, el organillero mueve las manos y cifra señas en el aire. que se acercaban Hans percibió algo anómalo en la robustez de Pero, ¿quién es este personaje? El organillero, además de la muralla, una especie de advertencia sobre la dificultad de salir, recordar la figura gris del Homero borgeano, el troglodita que más que de entrar... Tuvo la sensación de ingresar en un lugar recién aprende a escribir, remite de manera directa al poeta de “El rey desalojado” (15). En muchos sentidos, Wandernburgo se construye burgués” de Rubén Darío. En este texto, Darío retrata la sociedad como una ciudad laberíntica que recuerda la borgeana Ciudad burguesa –la prosa del mundo, como la definía Hegel– y muestra de los Inmortales. Es a partir de la configuración de la ciudad, cómo en ella el poeta se ha vuelto un objeto más de esa cultura: entonces, que El viajero del siglo empieza a dialogar con el cuento un objeto accesorio semejante a los objetos muertos que decoran “El Inmortal” de Borges. Por una parte, como señala Álvaro, “es el palacio del rey. Para Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot, el modernismo imposible saber dónde está exactamente... en el mapa, porque ha fue la primera reacción en el mundo de lengua española de la crisis cambiado de lugar todo el tiempo” (81). Además, dentro de la propia de fin de siglo que era, en realidad, la crisis que experimentaba el ciudad, las fronteras entre calles y espacios también se pierden y sujeto ante un cambio social (270). En esta encrucijada en la que el cambian de lugar como en los laberintos borgeanos: “Varias veces arte parecía llegar a su fin, los escritores modernistas reaccionaron 26 • Latin American Literary Review El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman con un gesto romántico y defendieron el espacio del arte como El organillero representa la memoria o, dicho de otro modo, un espacio atemporal. En “El rey burgués,” Darío critica aquella el “hacer memoria”. El organillero, con su mano relojera, gira la sociedad que ve la poesía solamente como un objeto. En el texto, por manivela y escenifica aquella literatura compuesta de tiempo que ejemplo, vemos cómo el rey condena al poeta a ganarse la vida con es tiempo. Es la patria que Hans no tiene porque todo en él es una caja de música: “Daréis vueltas a un manubrio. Cerraréis la boca. recuerdo. Para el organillero, el mundo se prefigura como algo que Haréis sonar una caja de música que toca valses, cuadrillas y galopas, se ve siempre por primera vez: nunca nada está quieto, ni siquiera como no prefiráis moriros de hambre. Pieza de música por pedazo las raíces de los árboles, porque todo está en continua transición. Por de pan. Nada de jerigonzas, ni ideales” (Darío 73). Durante una fiesta esta razón, Hans se identifica con la visión del mundo del organillero invernal, el poeta es olvidado en el frío, y muere. La idea final que se que ha aprendido a estar quieto y a viajar con su memoria. El desprende del texto, entonces, revela que la sociedad burguesa usa organillero, entonces, representa aquella fuerza centrífuga que, al a la poesía, pero después se olvida de ella y la deja morir. mismo tiempo, es centrípeta. Es la morada de Hans: la morada de De la misma manera, el organillero con su caja de música es un la errancia. personaje que Wandernburgo ignora: “Los transeúntes pasaban sin Cabe preguntarse, entonces, si ésta no es la esencia misma mirarlo, acostumbrados a su presencia o demasiado apresurados” de la literatura. Para Hans, el sentido de la poesía está en el hecho (24). El narrador lo ubica en la Plaza del Mercado, en medio de las de que “nunca está quieta” (223); viaja, como él, por el tiempo. El transacciones de capital y, visto por otros, es una figura sucia y viaje para Hans funciona de la misma manera que la manivela del desgarbada. Cuando una niña se acerca a él, “una voz se agachó organillero: “hace memoria.” El recuerdo, el volver a hacer presente diciendo: No mires al señor, ¿no ves cómo va vestido?” (24). Al igual aquello que ya sucedió, es la verdadera patria de Hans. Durante que el poeta de Darío, el organillero viste andrajos y es el otro de una de las tertulias en casa de Sophie, en una discusión sobre la una sociedad regida por la burguesía. Sus amigos, aparte de Hans, patria, leemos lo siguiente: “No sé, contestó Hans, no creo que nos son los parias de la sociedad: los mendigos, los trabajadores de las guíen las patrias, nos mueven las personas, que pueden ser fábricas, los jornaleros. Si el poeta de Darío había sido ignorado en de cualquier parte... Nos mueven los idiomas, continuó Hans, que una noche de fiesta, el organillero de Neuman, por otra parte, es pueden aprenderse, o los recuerdos” (106). expulsado de una fiesta a la que Sophie lo lleva. Los invitados se Por esta razón, al escuchar su música, Hans “sintió cómo quejan de su atuendo y de que toque música de otro tiempo: “¡Pero sentía” (24). esto qué es!, decía uno, ¿a quién se le ocurre tocar minués? (...) Si la La música del organillero le revela el origen de la tradición idea era arrullarnos, ¡ha sido un éxito! ¿De qué siglo es esto?... Pero –o del tiempo– que, en cierto sentido, es su propio origen. Hans a ver, se alzó una voz al fondo, ¿de dónde ha salido este payaso?, reconoce en el organillero a un compatriota: un otro yo, un yo ¿de qué hospicio lo han sacado?” (413). distinto, quizás más puro, puesto que es un yo que carece de libros. El organillero, en este sentido, es la contraparte de Hans. Y A Hans le sorprende que el organillero no lea y aun así sea tan sabio. por eso, aun a pesar de su apariencia, a Hans le llama la atención de Hans decide quedarse para conocerlo mejor, y así el organillero se inmediato. Su oficio, el constante girar de la manivela, funciona en convierte en el asidero del viajero del siglo. Por esta razón, cuando el el texto como un catalizador: organillero muere, su relación con Sophie llega al final, la acuarela – la frágil representación de su identidad– se rompe, Hans ya no tiene Cuando el organillero empezó a tocar, algo rozó el límite motivos para quedarse. Pero, sobre todo, cuando el organillero de algo. Hans no añoraba nada: prefería pensar en el muere: “El viento había empezado a soplar fuerte” (501). siguiente viaje. Pero al escuchar el organillo, su pasado En Cien años de soledad, el viento empieza en el momento metálico, le pareció que alguien, otro anterior a él, se en que el último Aureliano empieza a descifrar, en voz alta, la estremecía en su interior. Siguiendo la melodía como se historia de los Buendía: “En este punto, impaciente por conocer lee un papel al viento, a Hans le sucedió algo infrecuente: su propio origen, Aureliano dio un salto. Entonces empezó el sintió cómo sentía, se contempló emocionándose. Su viento, tibio, incipiente, lleno de voces del pasado, de murmullos oído atendía porque el organillo sonaba, el organillo de geranios antiguos, de suspiros de desengaños anteriores a las sonaba porque su oído atendía. Más que tocar, a Hans nostalgias más tenaces” (484). En un sólo momento, el momento le pareció que el viejo hacía memoria. Con una mano de de la lectura, se concentran un siglo de episodios cotidianos que aire, los dedos ateridos, movía la manivela y la cola del no estaban ordenados en el tiempo convencional de los hombres. perro, la plaza, la veleta, la luz, el mediodía giraban sin En ese acto final, Aureliano lee su origen y su futuro, plasmados interrupción, porque cuando la melodía rozaba su final en los manuscritos de Melquíades, otro organillero. Al igual que en la mano relojera del organillero hacía no una pausa, ni Macondo, los personajes de El viajero del siglo, como indica el final siquiera un silencio, apenas una rasgadura en un manto, de la novela, son llevados por el viento. El narrador nos dice que el le daba la vuelta y la música volvía a comenzar, y todo viento “es un rastrillo, una polea, una palanca, el viento sabe, alisa seguía girando, y ya no hacía frío. (24) el mapa, corre por todas partes y siempre es forastero, se acerca, El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman Latin American Literary Review • 27 toma forma, dibuja un cinturón en torno a Wandernburgo” (526) En la novela, el narrador destaca el origen múltiple de sus y envuelve a Sophie y a Hans, listos para abandonar, por caminos antepasados que son de distinta procedencia y están marcados distintos, la ciudad. por el desplazamiento y el desarraigo de sus patrias de origen. Uno El microcosmos creado, sin embargo, no se destruye. Si de ellos, el patriarca, está marcado por la ficción como origen de Wandernburgo, así como la escritura, existía antes que él, seguirá su identidad. El bisabuelo Jacobo, para evitar cumplir el servicio existiendo después de que Hans salga de ella; sólo que ahora sus militar en Siberia, cambia su apellido y adopta el pasaporte de un límites se tergiversan en la ventisca. En un sentido clásico, Hans no soldado alemán apellidado Neuman. El narrador, entonces, dice: es el mismo que ha llegado. De hecho, lleva el arcón más pesado “Mi bisabuelo salvó su vida cambiando de identidad y renaciendo que cuando llegó y a sus pies, quizás a modo de asidero, “un estuche extranjero. En otras palabras, haciéndose ficción” (Ventanas 75). de madera con un organillo dentro” (529). Con este final, Neuman Se podría decir, siguiendo el relato de Neuman, que esta identidad define el tránsito final del ethos errante: el viaje debe continuar, ficticia se implanta en Argentina en donde surge el árbol genealógico pero con el organillo, que es el origen del tiempo y la tradición, a de la familia del protagonista. cuestas. Al final de la novela, Andrés Neuman, el protagonista –que Siguiendo la perspectiva de El viajero, la identidad podría ser también el escritor– debe enfrentarse a su propio latinoamericana se define como transcurso y desplazamiento, desplazamiento: migrar junto con su familia a España. Este hecho porque el verdadero origen es ese mismo desplazamiento. El final lo lleva a revisar uno de sus cuentos y esta revisión se convierte en de la novela revela que la identidad de Hans se encuentra en el re-escritura. Así pues, el joven Neuman se ve obligado a re-escribir traslado de la tradición representada en el arcón y en el organillo. su cuento para modificarlo y adaptarlo a la modalidad del español Hans es distinto, pero continúa siendo un viajero y el arcón, unido de España. Este hecho, casi accidental y generado en el centro al organillo, es un archivo en movimiento, un dispositivo de la de una ficción personal, permite comprender cómo Neuman, el memoria que permite que Hans se mueva y, al mismo tiempo, escritor, se encuentra, al igual que su protagonista, en medio de siga conectado con aquello que ha sido. ¿No es esa la experiencia dos orillas. Él mismo, como toda su familia, llevará el signo de la de aquellos escritores que escriben fuera de sus lugares de origen? desterritorialización. Hans representa una nueva manera de ser latinoamericano en la En El viajero del siglo, el ‘estar en dos orillas’ se convierte en que la identidad se relaciona con el movimiento y con la habilidad una seña definitoria de la identidad del protagonista y representa de llevar, de hacer todavía más pesado, el arcón. la situación de muchos escritores y lectores latinoamericanos cuya La relación entre movimiento e identidad se relaciona con narrativa trasnacional es también su experiencia vital. Para Hans, la posición ambivalente de Neuman. Hijo de argentinos, que a su el estar siempre en dos partes, el representar él mismo un viaje de vez son descendientes de italianos y alemanes judíos, ha vivido en ida y vuelta, hace que la frontera se convierta en el único espacio España desde los doce años. Neuman es hijo de las migraciones posible. Neuman, al igual que Hans, ha constituido su identidad culturales. Su espacio, como él mismo ha señalado, es la frontera. y, por tanto, su escritura, como una construcción en tránsito. En Una vez Argentina (2003) está construida a modo de biografía “Identidad de mano,” Neuman dice: ficticia o, según Basanta, “autoficción” (68). La autoficción esun relato que se presenta como novela, pero que se caracteriza por Siempre he necesitado una maleta para escribir un tener una apariencia autobiográfica en que el personaje tiene el libro. A veces he escrito viajando. Otras veces he mismo nombre que el autor (Alberca 115). En esta novela, Neuman viajado escribiendo. No me refiero al traslado, que es crea al personaje-Neuman, retrata el Buenos Aires en el que creció un accidente. Sino al movimiento, que es una actitud. El y relaciona la historia de una familia –que podría ser la suya– con viaje como actitud, como punto de vista, como sintaxis. la historia de la nación argentina.9 El texto se presenta como una (12) novela, sin embargo, el personaje se parece al propio Neuman –es hijo de músicos, migra a España siendo todavía niño, escribe desde Considera cómo el viajar a un país en el que se hablaba la misma pequeño– y se llama igual que éste. El recurso de llamar al personaje lengua produjo una transformación en su propia intimidad. Así pues, Neuman conlleva a que el lector no pueda identificar si el texto es perdió la posibilidad de volver al español, “como bastión identitario un relato de ficción o una autobiografía. Esta ambigüedad hace que frente al entorno extraño” (“Identidad” 13). Para él, entonces, la Una vez Argentina sea un texto liminal: una frontera en la que se une imposibilidad de descubrir en la lengua su seña de identidad lo lleva el relato de ficción y el relato autobiográfico.10 La novela se inserta a un conflicto íntimo con su propio idioma. Neuman relata cómo en en aquello que Ludmer ha definido como literatura postautónoma. España, para comunicarse con sus compañeros de clase, traducía Si bien aparece bajo la etiqueta de literatura, no se la puede leer del español al español: “Buscaba equivalencias. Comparaba únicamente con este criterio y, en esta ambivalencia, los textos de pronunciaciones. Pensaba cada palabra desde los dos lados” la literatura postautónoma “son y no son literatura, son ficción y (“Identidad” 13). El viaje supuso, entonces, “una extranjerización realidad” (150). de la lengua materna” y su experiencia viajera le permitió construir, 28 • Latin American Literary Review El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman a través de la literatura, una “lengua anfibia” (“Identidad” 13). cierta forma poético: el conflicto del lugar. No el lugar físico, que es La condición de extranjería y distanciamiento frente a la propia un problema menor, sino el lugar simbólico: ¿desde dónde escribir?” lengua es, para Neuman, el origen de la escritura: “Se me ocurre (“Pasaporte” 202). Desde esta perspectiva, se podría entender la que precisamente esa [el conflicto íntimo con el propio idioma] trayectoria narrativa de Neuman como la búsqueda de un lugar sin importar si somos sedentarios o nómadas, es la función del desde el cual escribir, la búsqueda de una morada o ethos, que se lenguaje literario” (“Identidad” 14). Es decir, la ficción sería aquel representa en su narrativa como un lugar sobre el cual escribir: ese mecanismo creador que permite expulsar lo propio, convertirlo en lugar es la tradición entendida como una entidad viva, como una algo extranjero, para poder traducirlo y, en esa traducción, poseerlo revelación, que lo invita a transgredirla. de nuevo. Esta dialéctica de la desapropiación y la re-apropiación es La desterritorialización, la extranjerización de la lengua similar al trabajo que realiza Neuman con su re-escritura de motivos materna, la desapropiación y la re-apropiación de la ficción; la idea presentes en las obras de Darío, Borges y García Márquez. Para del movimiento como dispositivo creador, como sintaxis y estructura Neuman, además, la poesía y la traducción están ligadas de manera del mundo, y cómo búsqueda de ese lugar desde donde escribir, íntima y representan la experiencia del extranjero: coincide con el estado de la cuestión acerca de la actual literatura hispanoamericana. Como novela que representa el ethos errante, El ...cada poema pone en marcha un mecanismo traductor. viajero del siglo re-escribe y dialoga con textos emblemáticos de la Los traductores deben dudar de cada palabra, igual que literatura hispanoamericana del siglo XX. En el gesto de insertar la los poetas. Hasta que la extranjería termina invadiendo tradición en la literatura actual, Neuman rememora esa tradición, le también el terreno materno. Quizás en eso, exactamente, rinde homenaje, pero también la desplaza hacia un nuevo ámbito, consista la poesía. En quedarse a dormir en un hotel en un territorio extranjero, en que aquellos elementos sacados de su nuestra ciudad natal. (18) procedencia originaria, su aldea natal, son re-escritos. Neuman se presenta, por tanto, más que como un escritor, como un re- En “Pasaporte de frontera (10 fragmentos hacia ninguna escritor o, quizás, un traductor cuya función es actualizar los parte)”, el escritor reflexiona sobre su propia condición migratoria significados de la tradición hacia nuevos significados. Y, con esto, como aquello que lo ha llevado a cuestionar la idea de pertenencia nos permite entender las nuevas posibilidades de escribir del sujeto o, en sus propias palabras, “el sentido de patria como algo natural” latinoamericano, siempre en la frontera. La errancia de Neuman – (202). Para Neuman, la noción de aquella patria que ha dejado, que es también la nuestra– lo lleva a entablar diálogos dentro de una Argentina, no se vive tanto como una pérdida –como sí sucedió con misma tradición como si fuesen viajes hacia dentro: movimiento y aquellos escritores que por razones políticas fueron expulsados de morada. Neuman nos invita entonces a volver a leernos. A leernos sus países–, sino como la posibilidad de buscar –o fundar– un lugar como si fuéramos extranjeros de nosotros mismos. A leernos con un simbólico. “En ambos casos [los exiliados y los simples migrantes] pasaporte en la mano. hablamos de gente desarraigada que se enfrenta a un conflicto en

NOTAS

1 Conviene señalar que en Identidad cultural de Iberoamérica en (82). Vicente Luis Mora coincide con esta aproximación y ve en la novela la su narrativa, Fernando Ainsa toma los concepto de lo centrífugo y lo summa de géneros que Andrés Neuman cultiva de manera independiente: centrípeto de M.M Bakhtin. En The Dialogic Imagination, en el capítulo el relato breve, el ensayo, la poesía y el aforismo (398). dedicado al discurso en la novela, Bahktin entiende a las fuerzas centrípetas 3 El propio concepto de novela total es movedizo. Mario Vargas Llosa y centrífugas como “respectively the centralizing and decentralizing la define a partir de la novela de caballerías Tirant Lo Blanc y la aplica a (or decentering) forces in any language or culture” (425). Sostiene, escritores tan diversos como Dickens y Faulkner (11). En “Novelistas sin además, que los géneros poéticos se desarrollaron ante la influencia de timón,” Wilfrido H. Corral analiza distintas aproximaciones al concepto aquellas fuerzas unificadoras, centralizadoras y centrípetas; los géneros de novela total y problematiza la propia categoría al analizar una serie de de la prosa, en cambio, fueron históricamente formados por las fuerzas novelas anteriores al Boom que no han sido consideradas como totales: descentralizadoras y centrífugas (272-73). Sin embargo, todo acto verbal, Umbral, que el chileno Juan Emar empezó a escribir en 1940; En la ciudad he “every utterance participates in the ‘unitary language’ (in its centripetal perdido una novela…(1930) del ecuatoriano Humberto Salvador, y En babia. forces and tendencies) and at the same time partakes a social and historical El Manuscrito de un braquicéfalo (1940) de J.I de Diego Padró. heteroglossia (the centrifugal, stratifying forces)” (272). 4 La importancia de Roberto Bolaño en la configuración de la literatura 2 Ángel Basanta, por ejemplo, define a la novela como el punto de latinoamericana actual es capital. Su experiencia, como exiliado político en llegada de la trayectoria novelística de Neuman que habría evolucionado México y después en España, lo convirtió en un autor que no pertenecía hasta “la novela total como producto mestizo que busca la hibridación entre únicamente a su Chile natal. Su emblemática novela Los detectives salvajes el cuento, el microrrelato, la poesía y el ensayo en la novela intelectual” se desarrolla en varios países y está escrita en un español de procedencias El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman Latin American Literary Review • 29

múltiples que resquebraja la idea de nación. Para Jorge Volpi, “Si los base del sistema literario no radica en estéticas específicas, sino en su miembros del Boom escribían libros centrados en sus respectivos lugares legitimación y posterior reproducción en un sistema discursivo concreto de origen con la vocación de convocar la elusiva esencia latinoamericana, que se traduce a prácticas específicas como ediciones, traducciones, etc.” Bolaño hizo lo inverso: escribir libros que jugaban a pertenecer a las (25). Sin embargo, cuestiona la idea de autonomía del sistema literario. Al literaturas de estas naciones pero que terminaban por revelar el carácter defender la autonomía del sistema literario, Casanova dejaría a un lado fugitivo de la identidad. Al impostar las voces de sus coterráneos, Bolaño se las relaciones de colonialidad como huellas que el campo de poder habría convirtió en el último latinoamericano total…” (2167). En cuanto la crítica dejado en el sistema autónomo de la literatura (27). Después de revisar las de su obra es vasta, es imposible realizar una bibliografía anotada sobre propuestas de Moretti y Casanova, Sánchez Prado busca comprender la el autor y su obra. Sin embargo, los volúmenes editados por Edmundo posición de la literatura latinoamericana, en cuanto literatura periférica, Paz Soldán y Gustavo Faverón Patriau, Bolaño Salvaje (2008), y por Celina dentro de esta articulación geoliteraria. Retomando a Alfonso Reyes, Manzoni, Roberto: la escritura como tauromaquia (2002), son ilustradores sostiene que, para éste, “la literatura no era una estrategia de incorporación ya que ponen en consideración una variedad de aproximaciones. Por otra al mercado internacional, sino un intento de afirmación de ciudadanías parte, resulta interesante la “Introducción” de Beyond Bolaño (2015) de culturales” (31). En esta misma línea sitúa a Borges y plantea que la Héctor Hoyos, y su primer capítulo, “Nazi Tales from the Americas at the canonización de Borges no se dio porque éste fue construido por el espacio Turn of the Twenty-first Century.” editorial europeo o por las lógicas trasatlánticas del mercado literario, 5 En Héroes sin atributos, Julio Premat explora la manera en que la “sino a que su estética del margen implica una ruptura profunda de los literatura argentina moderna se relaciona con la creación de una figura presupuestos intelectuales de la modernidad europea…” (32). El ejemplo de autor. Premat, al analizar la frase de Witold Gombrowicz –“Yo soy mi de Borges, para Sánchez Prado, permite distinguir “algo que no queda claro problema más importante y posiblemente el único: el único de todos mis en el debate de la literatura mundial: la diferencia entre la percepción que héroes que realmente me interesa. […] Comenzar a crearse a sí mismo y Europa tiene de la literatura latinoamericana y el lugar que esta literatura hacer de Gombrowicz un personaje, como Hamlet o Don Quijote”– sostiene ocupa, de hecho, en el mundo” (33). En conclusión, para Sánchez Prado, la que existen ficciones en las que el autor construye una “autofiguración, consagración internacional de la literatura latinoamericana y otras regiones un personaje que se crea, según una afirmación repetida y lúcida, en el periféricas no se explicaría solamente en términos de prácticas editoriales intersticio entre el yo biográfico y el espacio de recepción de sus textos” o estructuras geoculturales, sino con el agotamiento de un paradigma (12-13). Parte de la idea de que para inventar una literatura hay que moderno-colonial en el cual una serie de sujetos marginalizados cultural y inventar a un escritor (17), y analiza los casos paradigmáticos de Macedonio políticamente irrumpen en el espacio europeo (33-34). Para revisar más el Fernández, Borges, Osvaldo Lamborghini, Saer y Piglia que, según el autor, concepto de literatura mundial, ver el ya citado Born Translated de Rebecca habrían creado un autofiguración negativa e irónica. El texto de Premat Walkowitz, y, en relación con la literatura latinoamericana, ver Strategic permite comprender que Neuman, en El viajero del siglo, crea una figura Occidentalism de Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado; The Spaces of Latin American de autor que es un traductor a través del personaje de Hans. Por eso no es Literature de Juan de Castro; Cosmopolitan Desires de Mariano Siskind y The extraño que vuelque en él, en su ficción de autor, ciertas ideas que podrían Global Latin American Novel de Héctor Hoyos. relacionarse con su visión personal acerca de la literatura. 8 Wandernburgo se relaciona, de modo accidental, con la noción de 6 En su discurso de aceptación del premio Alfaguara, “Ficticios, isla urbana de Ludmer. Para Ludmer, la isla urbana ejemplificaría la manera sincronizados y extraterrestres,” Neuman dice: “La literatura en en que han caído “las divisiones tradicionales entre formas nacionales o español puede aspirar, al igual que otras grandes literaturas (como la cosmopolitas, formas del realismo o de la vanguardia, de la ‘literatura pura’ norteamericana) u otras lenguas (como el francés o el alemán), a simbolizar o la ‘literatura social’ y hasta puede caer la diferenciación entre realidad cualquier espacio, a ser una metonimia del mundo.” histórica y ficción” (127). Para la crítica argentina, después de 1990 se verían otros territorios, otros sujetos, otras temporalidades y configuraciones 7 Conviene explorar brevemente el concepto de literatura mundial. narrativas que no se guían bajo los moldes bipolares de la tradición. Uno de Sigo la aproximación de Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado en la “Introducción” estos es la isla urbana. Presente en novelas como Angosta de Héctor Abad de América Latina en la “literatura mundial”. Si bien el texto es de 2006, Faciolince, La villa de Aira, entre otras, se caracteriza por la barbarización el crítico realiza un trazado histórico del término y analiza las propuestas de la ciudad y sus divisiones naturalizadas. Wandernburgo no es una isla de Franco Moretti y Pascale Casanova que, en cierto momento, dominaron urbana, sin embargo, al igual que ésta, “es la ficción de un territorio que se el debate acerca de la literatura mundial. Tras revisar el concepto de puede desterritorializar, abandonar y destruir” (135) y en que “la literatura ‘lectura a distancia’ de Moretti como el método que utiliza el crítico de la ya no es manifestación de identidad nacional” (135). literatura mundial para buscar patrones en común en los trabajos críticos 9 de los especialistas en literatura nacionales (20), Sánchez Prado cuestiona Sus novelas anteriores, Bariloche (1999) y La vida en las ventanas la propuesta de Moretti en cuanto ésta no reconoce la desigualdad del (2002) ya introducen personajes con identidades dispersas y sin asidero campo de la crítica literaria y la manera en que ésta descansa sobre una espacial. El protagonista de Bariloche, Demetrio, es un recogedor geopolítica del conocimiento que se establece desde el centro (21). Por otra de basura que vive en un Buenos Aires desolado, pero añora el parte, el crítico mexicano reconoce el aporte de Casanova al plantear la espacio perdido de su infancia: Bariloche. En La vida en las ventanas, república mundial de las letras como un mercado de bienes simbólicos en el el protagonista envía emails a una amada fantasmática, sin recibir que existe acumulación de capital cultural por parte de figuras específicas, respuesta, y se encuentra en una ciudad sin nombre. Menciono estos naciones y lenguas, pero en el que también hay escritores que cuestionan ejemplos porque demuestran que, desde sus inicios, a Neuman le el status quo y que consiguen su propio capital cultural para ingresar en interesan aquellos espacios liminales caracterizados por una pérdida de la república mundial (24). Considera que “Casanova comprende que la realidad. El recuerdo de Bariloche, que habita y es a su vez habitado por 30 • Latin American Literary Review El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman

el personaje a través del recuerdo, es tan espectral como la ciudad-red del relato, el de todos mis textos, se parece mucho a mí pero no soy yo. en la que discurre la vida del protagonista de. Mi vida es la escenografía de mis libros. La ficción es el teatro.” La novela 10 Para Ana Casas, “la autoficción responde a una tendencia general del de Neuman, por tanto, se insertaría dentro de esta tendencia general de arte contemporáneo, pues, asumida la imposibilidad de un referente estable la ficción latinoamericana que se caracteriza por poner en crisis la figura –incluido el propio autor–, los creadores siguen afanándose, en plasmar sus del autor, el referente estable, y los límites de la ficción. Para más reflexión identidades (fragmentaria y precariamente), con más intensidad incluso sobre el concepto de autoficción y las diferentes teorizaciones, ver los libros que en otros periodos” (13). Si bien la autoficción se puede rastrear en editados por Ana Casas: El yo fabulado. Nuevas aproximaciones críticas textos emblemáticos de la literatura latinoamericana como La tía Julia y el a la autoficción (2014) y La autoficción. Reflexiones teóricas (2012). Para escribidor, en la literatura contemporánea la encontramos en Alan Pauls, profundizar en la idea de la autoficción y su relación con la subjetividad, ver César Aira, Fernando Vallejo, Ricardo Piglia, y Eduardo Halfon, entre otros. En la era de la intimidad (2007) de Nora Catelli. Halfon, acerca de Halfon-personaje, ha dicho: “En realidad, el personaje

OBRAS CITADAS

Aínsa, Fernando. Del topos al logos. Propuestas de geopoética. Fuentes, Carlos. “¿Ha muerto la novela?” Geografía de la novela. Fondo de Iberoamericana, 2006. Cultura Económica, 1993, pp. 9-31. Aínsa, Fernando. Identidad cultural de Iberoamérica en su narrativa. Gredos, Fuguet, Alberto y Sergio Gómez. “Presentación del País McOndo.” 1986. McOndo, editado por Alberto Fuguet y Sergio Gómez, Mondadori, Aínsa, Fernando. Palabras nómadas. Nueva cartografía de la pertenencia. 1996, pp. 9-18. Iberoamericana, 2012. García Márquez, Gabriel. Cien años de soledad. Grupo Editorial Norma, Alberca, Manuel. “¿Existe la autoficción hispanoamericana?” Cuadernos del 1997. CILHA vol.7, no. 7-8, 2005, pp. 115-27. Gutiérrez Girardot, Rafael. “Sobre el modernismo.” Lectura crítica de la Alemany, Luis. “Eduardo Halfon: ‘Me encantaría ser otro tipo de escritor, literatura americana: la formación de las culturas nacionales, editado pero no puedo.’” El Mundo, 7 Junio 2018, www.elmundo.es/cultura/liter por Saul Sosnowski, Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1996, pp. 266-92. atura/2018/06/07/5b18f62046163ff8058b4638.html. Hoyos, Héctor. Beyond Bolaño: The Global Latin American Novel. Columbia Bakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays, editado por Michel UP, 2015. Holquist, U of Texas P, 1981. Ludmer, Josefina. “Identidades territoriales y fabricación del presente.” Basanta, Ángel. “Trayectoria novelística (en marcha) de Andrés Neuman.” Aquí América latina. Una especulación. Eterna Cadencia Editora, 2010, Andrés Neuman: Grand Séminaire de Neuchatel. Coloquio Internacional pp. 149-56. Andrés Neuman, 21-22 de mayo de 2012, editado por Irene Andrés- Ludmer, Josefina. “La ciudad en la isla urbana.” Aquí América latina. Una Suárez y Antonio Rivas, Arco Libros, 2014, pp. 59-82. especulación. Eterna Cadencia Editora, 2010, pp. 127-48. Borges, Jorge Luis. “El Inmortal.” El Aleph. Emecé, 1996, pp. 7-37. Manzoni, Celina, editor. Roberto Bolaño: la escritura como tauromaquia. Casas, Ana. “La autoficción en los estudios hispánicos: perspectivas Ediciones Corregidor, 2002. actuales,” El yo fabulado. Nuevas aproximaciones críticas a la autoficción, Mora, Vicente Luis. “17 apuntes sobre El viajero del fin de siglo.” Entre la editado por Ana Casas, Iberoamericana, 2014, pp. 7-21. Argentina y España. El espacio trasatlántico de la narrativa actual, Casas, Ana, editor. La autoficción. Reflexiones teóricas. Arco Libros, 2012. editado por Ana Gallegos Cuiñas, Iberoamericana, 2012, pp. 389-96. Castro, Juan E. de. The Spaces of Latin American Literature. Tradition, Neuman, Andrés. “Ficticios, sincronizados, y extraterrestres.” La Estafeta Globalization and Cultural Production. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. del Viento. Revista de Poesía de la Casa de América, 21 Marzo 2012, Catelli, Nora. En la era de la intimidad. Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2007. www.laestafetadelviento.es/articulos/meditaciones/ficticios- Corral, Wilfrido H. “Novelistas sin timón: exceso y subjetividad en el sincronizados yextraterrestres. concepto de ‘novela total.’” Modern Languages Notes, vol. 116, no. 2, Neuman, Andrés. “Identidad de mano.” Andrés Neuman: Grand Séminaire Mar 2001, pp. 315-49. de Neuchatel. Coloquio Internacional Andrés Neuman, 21-22 de mayo Corral, Wilfrido H. “This Book.” The Contemporary Spanish-American Novel: de 2012, editado por Irene Andrés Suárez y Antonio Rivas, Arco Libros, Bolaño and After. Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 1-13. 2014, pp. 11-21. Darío, Rubén. “El rey burgués.” Azul... Cantos de Vida y Esperanza. Espasa Neuman, Andrés. “Pasaportes de frontera (10 fragmentos hacia ninguna Calpe,1994, pp. 69-74. parte).” Literatura más allá de la nación. De lo centrípeto y lo centrífugo en la narrativa hispanoamericana del siglo XXI, editado por Francisca Echeverría, Bolívar. La modernidad de lo barroco. Era, 1998. Noguerol et al., Iberoamericana, 2012, pp. 199-207. Esteban, Ángel y Jesús Montoya Juárez. “¿Desterritorializados o Neuman, Andrés. Una vez Argentina. Alfaguara, 2014. multiterritorializados?: la narrativa hispanoamericana en el siglo XXI.” Literatura más allá de la nación. De lo centrípeto y lo centrífugo Neuman, Andrés. El viajero del siglo. Penguin Random House, 2016. en la narrativa hispanoamericana del siglo XXI, editado por Francisca Paz Soldán, Edmundo y Gustavo Faverón Patriau, editores. Bolaño Salvaje. Noguerol et al, Iberoamericana, 2012, pp. 7-13. Editorial Candaya, 2008. El ethos errante: movimiento y morada en El viajero del siglo de Andrés Neuman Latin American Literary Review • 31

Premat, Julio. Héroes sin atributos. Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2009. Siskind, Mariano. Cosmopolitan Desires. Global Modernity and World Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M. “‘Hijos de Metapa’: un recorrido conceptual de Literature in Latin America. Northwestern UP, 2014. la literatura mundial (a manera de introducción),” América Latina en la Vargas Llosa, Mario. Carta de batalla por Tirant lo Blanc. Seix Barral, 1991. “literatura mundial,” editado por Ignacio M. Sánchez-Prado, Biblioteca Volpi, Jorge. El Insomnio de Bolívar. Cuatro consideraciones intempestivas de América, 2006, pp. 7-46. sobre América Latina en el siglo XXI. Debate, 2009. Sánchez Prado, Ignacio M. Strategic Occidentalism. On Mexican Fiction, Walkowitz, Rebecca L. Born Translated. The Contemporary Novel in an Age of the Neoliberal Book Market, and the Question of World Literature. World Literature. Columbia UP, 2015. Northwestern UP, 2018. Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject

Derek Beaudry University of Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT: The fiction of the Mexican writer, poet, and theorist José Revueltas (1914-1976) continues to inspire critical work. One aspect that underlies a good deal of this criticism is the way in which Revueltas’ fiction was often at odds or contradicted his political commitments throughout his life. In this article I argue that this tension can be attributed to a questioning of the ontological assumptions that inform both communist and liberal theory and practice of Revueltas’ era. In particular, I will focus on the novel Los errores (1964) in which this deconstructive impulse can be seen in the treatment of the subject, which is represented as constitutively divided, at times even effaced. The novel is concerned with the various aporias that the notion of a centered subject presents, including the relation between the subject and action, the role of the unconscious, and an epistemological gap between language and the real introduced by one of the protagonists from whose ideas the novel derives its title. I argue that Los errores represents an effort to think of ethics and politics beyond the notion of a unitary subject. This inclination is also evidenced in the life of Revueltas with his eventual move away from the various communist parties and towards the more experimental politics that he associated with the student movement in Mexico.

Keywords: José Revueltas, subjectivity, deconstruction, politics, ethics

There are arguably few Latin American writers whose lives have novel Los muros de agua (1941). The essay ostensibly concerns this inspired more critical speculation than José Revueltas (Mexi- inaugural novel but is more preoccupied with explaining his philoso- co—1914-1976). Critics have particularly focused on his lifelong phy and method of writing fiction, which he called dialectical mate- political activism. The political trajectory of Revueltas begins at the rialist realism. His elaboration of this realism in the essay works to age of fifteen, when he joins the Federación de Jóvenes Comunistas. bring his life and literary work together. Indeed, he ends the intro- As a result of his allegiance to various communist parties, Revueltas duction by affirming that his fiction and his Marxist-Leninist mili- was imprisoned on at least four occasions. He was also expelled tancy are complementary practices (20). However, just three years three times from the very same communist parties for which Re- later, the novel Los errores—the focus of my analysis here—restates vueltas was persecuted by the Mexican state. These excommunica- the criticism of the party, both in the Soviet Union and Mexico, but tions were due to fallouts with party leadership over his perceived in more vociferous terms. The starting point of my investigation is ideological deviations, especially in the two novels, Los días terre- a question or puzzle that has continued to animate critical work nales (1949) and Los errores (1964). In addition, attention has been on the fiction of Revueltas: how to explain the apparent contradic- paid to his move away from the parties and gravitation towards the tion between Revueltas’ political activism and his literary work? student movement of 1968 in the last part of Revueltas’ life. With- Throughout his life, Revueltas insisted that he had remained a faith- out a doubt, besides writing fiction, the life of Revueltas was con- ful communist. And yet, in his fiction, one finds that this trenchant sumed by the theoretical and practical aspects of politics.1 critique of the communist party leadership of his day is not so much In regards to the reception of his fiction, Revueltas faced a premised on a non-dogmatic stance to politics; nor does his censure backlash among his fellow-travelers with the publication of Los días pertain to a limited group of rogue actors, who have betrayed the terrenales. The most public and extensive criticism came from the truth of communism. I argue that the actions of the party leader- Marxist critic Enrique Ramírez y Ramírez, who, in an article titled ship compel Revueltas to reflect on the ontological assumptions on ‘Sobre una literatura de extravío,’ accused Revueltas of subordinat- which communist thought and politics are based. More specifically, ing realism to harmful ideas, variously identified as individualism, it calls into question the centered individual and collective subject mysticism, nihilism and existentialism, calling the last a ‘philosophy that are presupposed in notions as ostensibly varied as the commu- of decadence’ (344). Revueltas responded by trying to recall the nist New Man, the Mexican national subject, and economic liberal- novel from circulation and wrote several pieces of self-critique. Dur- ism’s notion of the homo economicus. ing this period, in 1961, Revueltas also published an introductory es- Critics have sought to explain the tension between Revueltas’ say to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of his first life and fiction by positing a combination of often antagonistic in- The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject Latin American Literary Review • 33

fluences in his work, producing a dialectical relation that serves to in accord regarding a dialectical element in the fiction, something generate the fiction. The poet and critic Octavio Paz points out the that Revueltas encouraged, as we see in the 1961 essay for the an- paradoxical copresence of Christianity and Marxism in the revuel- niversary marking his first published novel. Revueltas’ notion of dia- tian oeuvre.2 In a similar way, the critic Edith Negrín asserts that, lectical materialist realism is based on his assertion that existence rather than an opposition between Christianity and Marxism, we adheres to a certain order: ‘la realidad tiene un movimiento interno find a dialectical relation between existentialism and Marxism. For propio, que no es ese torbellino que se nos muestra en su apariencia Negrín, this theoretical tension in Revueltas’ fiction expresses a hu- inmediata, donde todo parece tirar en mil direcciones a la vez.’ As man condition that is tragic in its finitude (156). Philippe Cheron a result, there is an imperative that the fiction of politically com- takes up this tragic human condition and argues for a dialectical mitted writers such as Revueltas represent this movement, which relation as well. He focuses on the predominance of prison in the is headed towards a final synthesis: ‘Tenemos entonces que saber fiction of Revueltas, which is not merely a frequent theme in the cuál es la dirección fundamental, a qué punto se dirige, y tal direc- work of Revueltas but the central figure that structures the entire ción será, así, el verdadero movimiento de la realidad, aquél con que output of the author (296). He points out that in Revueltas’ work, debe coincidir la obra literaria’ (19). Nonetheless, I contend that the every disciplinary control engenders a concomitant resistance. ontological assumptions in Revueltas’ novel under consideration As a result, there is in the fiction a constant tension between im- here differ greatly from those of dialectical materialist realism. The prisonment and the desire to escape (212). Cheron goes on to call latter assumes a world that possesses laws, whose origins and the this tension the ‘dialectic of imprisonment’ (286). Ignacio Sánchez properties that are engendered by these laws, are available to hu- Prado points out that the growing tension between Revueltas’ po- man thought and language. What we are confronted with in Los er- litical practice and his literary practice produces a break with both rores, however, is an unknown origin, and, as a result, the lack of Marxist Leninist and Mexican nationalist ideologies. It is in his liter- substantial ground on which any sort of eternal truth may be based. ary work that Revueltas shows his true political orientation, which This condition is evinced from the position of a human subject that is a concern for the poor of the world that takes priority over any is not centered but fissured. Revueltas’ fiction expresses an epis- theory or dogma (154). temological skepticism that bars a transparent relation between Marxist critics view their work on the fiction of Revueltas as a thought and language and the world. This does not give way to the recuperative effort, in opposition to what they see as a hegemonic chaos that Revueltas refers to in his essay, but any necessity in the and erroneous reading of Revueltas’ fiction that is informed by a literary world of the novel is determined by contingent and chang- thinly veiled anti-communism. These critics argue that the ambigu- ing conditions rather than eternal laws. Crucially, then, human ex- ity in Revueltas’ work contains a coherent, albeit idiosyncratic, artic- istence is without a fundamental direction that necessarily leads ulation of a Marxist theory and practice. For Evodio Escalante, there to an ultimate synthesis—absolute knowledge or the end of alien- is a clear systematization at work in Revueltas’ fiction that adheres ation. The deconstructive mode of thought at work in this novel to key Marxist categories (del lado moridor 26). Similarly, in his in- brings the assumptions of a centered subject to their limits and as a tellectual biography of Revueltas, Jorge Fuentes Morúa sets out to result affects how we understand the categories of politics, ethics, trace the influence of Marx in the work of Revueltas and closely fol- and community. lows Escalante’s analysis.3 Bruno Bosteels is another critic whose re- The figure of disjunction is emphasized in the doubling or du- cuperative efforts seek to establish a reading of Revueltas’ body of alistic form of the plot structure of Los errores. In terms of structure, work that is in harmony with the political activism of the author. In Los errores is a double narrative, composed of two largely discrete an article on the novel Los errores, Bosteels argues that though the stories that take place alongside each other. At the center of the novel contains a call for ethical reform directed at the communist first story are Mario and Lucrecia, a petty thief and a prostitute, who party, one should not understand that this critique puts in doubt Re- are lovers. In the second, a group of communists are planning to vueltas’ fealty to communist thought and politics. What underlines stage a general strike, which a fascist group in the pay of the state is Bosteels’ methodological approach to the author’s work is a form conspiring to defeat. Though the two narratives are largely separate of biographical criticism. Though Bosteels concedes that Los errores throughout the novel, I argue that they are, nonetheless, themati- lends itself to a reading like the one that I am developing in this ar- cally linked, something that is intimated in the epilogue, which in- ticle, or like that of Sánchez Prado mentioned above, he attributes cludes the dénouement of both plots, and is titled ‘Nudo ciego.’ The this element to a sort of cognitive lapse on the part of Revueltas. Af- blind knot serves as an emblematic figure in both stories, indicating terall, if Revueltas insisted on his loyalty to communist thought and the condition of a fissured subject to which the characters are equal- politics, then readers ought to interpret his fiction with this convic- ly exposed, though they are unaware of or blind to this condition. tion in mind. As Bosteels insists, ‘sin duda alguna, aunque su novela In the remainder of this essay, I will focus on the varied turns in the puede leerse de esta forma, nada hubiera horrorizado más al eterno exploration of this condition that can be read throughout the novel. comunista que fue Revueltas’ (143). My analysis begins with a recurrent reflection in Los errores on the Though critics may not agree on the precise terms, they are ontological assumptions that trouble the notion of a unitary or cen- 34 • Latin American Literary Review The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject tered subject. I will then turn my attention to the deconstruction of malvada. Era una conciencia rabiosa, enloquecida, febricitante y this subjectivity as it is dramatized in the stories of the characters of violenta, en lucha contra su propio ser en el tiempo, contra su pro- Mario and Lucrecia. The novel is also concerned with the ethical and pia unidad’ (78). Similarly, humans possess the use of reason, but political implications of a divided subject, which I will discuss before the timing of its appearance in the existence of humans is late and moving on to the conclusion. I end the essay with a consideration therefore fatefully limited: ‘la [razón] de los seres terrenales habría of the tragic outcomes that mark not only Los errores but many of aparecido mucho tiempo después del momento oportuno para que Revueltas’ novels. It is in the tragic denouement of the novel that we pudiera esperar algo de ella. Debía tratarse, sin duda alguna, de un may catch a glimpse of an affirmative thinking of an ethico-political planeta tardío’ (79). According to Ponce, the condition of humans is thought and action beyond the centered subject. determined by chance and not a destiny that precedes human ex- The narrative of Los errores includes passages that reflect on istence. In similar terms, Giorgio Agamben states that ‘the mystery the ontological conditions that produce this divided subject. Early of the human being is not the metaphysical one of the conjunction in the novel, this intention is announced in the thought of one of the between the living being and language (or reason, or the soul) but characters, Jacobo Ponce, a dissident intellectual from whose ideas the practical and political one of their separation.’ The ground for the novel derives its title and the provocative thesis that marks Re- ethical and political thought and action is this gap, one in which ‘the vueltas’ story. Ponce elaborates an epistemological skepticism that becoming human of the human being will never be achieved once posits a constitutive disjuncture between thought and action, as and for all, will never cease to happen,’ rather than a current or fu- well as language and the real. In an often-quoted passage, which ture conjunction (208). forms a sort of excursus in the novel, Ponce puts forward his notion The centrality of Ponce’s ideas is further signaled in an etymo- of the human as an erroneous being that begins in the following logical examination of the syntagma ‘error.’ Most commonly, the manner: word “error” refers to the ‘holding of mistaken notions or beliefs’ (OED), and equally, to a ‘concepto equivocado o juicio falso’ (RAE), El hombre es un ser erróneo (…) un ser que nunca ter- which is voiced in the critique of the communist party throughout minará por establecerse del todo en ninguna parte: aquí the novel. But more important, ‘error’ derives from the Latin errare radica precisamente su condición revolucionaria y trági- which describes a roaming or wandering, which characterizes the ca, inapacible. No aspira a realizarse en otro punto—y es movement of perpetual becoming that the split between language decir, en esto encuentra ya su realización suprema –, en and being produces in the thinking of Ponce. Moreover, ‘error’ is re- otro punto—se repitió—que pueda tener una magnitud lated to errorem, or nominative error, that is, an inability to name mayor al grueso de un cabello, o sea, ese espacio que the subject of a verb of a given sentence, implying a disjuncture be- para la eterna eternidad, y sin que exista poder alguno tween the subject and their actions, as we see dramatized in the capaz de remediarlo, dejará siempre sin cubrir la coinci- cases of the characters of the novel, which I will discuss presently. dencia máxima del concepto con lo concebido, de la idea One may find in the fiction of Revueltas a further attempt to con su objeto. (67)4 provide an ontological explanation of sorts for this notion of a gap between language and being that Ponce develops in Los errores. This is to argue that language and thought are constitutively unable In the novel, this gap is tied to the relation between thought and to represent the world. In a recent article, Evodio Escalante swerves action and the question of origin, which constitutes a necessary from his earlier Marxist reading of Revueltas’ work discussed above ground on which a harmony between thought and action are al- and indicates this radical stance. He states that Revueltas, in the lowed to occur. The two stories that make up Los errores concern guise of his alter ego Ponce, becomes ‘un disidente no sólo del marx- characters who are wanting to effect what the narrator repeatedly ismo oficial, sino del marxismo a secas’ (‘El problema’ 198). calls a ‘supreme act,’ in which an act made by a conscious, centered This condition of erroneous being is further developed when subject will produce results that coincide with the intentions of Ponce’s explanatory digression continues in the form of a fanciful the agent of that action. The situation of Mario Cobián, whom the thought experiment. As Ponce speculates about erroneous being, reader encounters in the opening scene of the novel provides an ex- his reflections are interrupted by a traffic jam just outside his apart- emplary case. He is hiding out in a cheap motel, where he is prepar- ment. The noise of honking cars is directed at a large moving truck ing to rob Don Victorino, a money-lender in the neighborhood. The that is blocking traffic. Ponce imagines himself as a rational extra- set-up is familiar: Mario is planning to pull off this robbery so that he terrestrial from another part of the universe, who travels to earth and his girlfriend Lucrecia are able to leave Mexico City and start a to understand the ‘action of being’ as it can be inferred in the traffic new life as the owners of a store or bar in northern Mexico. As a part jam (74). After several observations, he finds that though humans of Mario’s scheme to rob Don Victorino, he plans on disguising him- possess consciousness, it is far from a faithful reflection of the world self as a travelling salesman. Though there are other ways to avoid but rather a figure of the divided human subject: ‘A todas luces detection, the choice of disguise intimates that Mario is attempting parecía tratarse de una conciencia enferma y tal vez, en el fondo, more than an improvement of his material situation; he is seeking The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject Latin American Literary Review • 35 a total break with his former life by means of an act that will allow another militant, Eladio Pintos, expresses this opposition in the fol- him to cast off his old self and become somebody new: ‘aquel acto lowing: ‘¿De dónde se sacaban estas conclusiones obtusas, mecáni- supremo y definitivo que lo hará cambiar su vida. Se iba a convertir cas, frías, donde ante todo lo primero que se ignoraba era la exis- en otra cosa, iba a cambiar de rumbo’ (16). tencia del ser humano? ¿O alguien abrigaba la enloquecida idea de As the narrative progresses, however, we find that the char- que el socialismo y el comunismo podrían reducirse a un helado es- acters’ supreme acts repeatedly produce unexpected outcomes. An quema de cifras y ecuaciones inexorables y sin alma?’ (145-46). The explanation for this element of contingency in Los errores may be passage is focalized on another dissident, Olegario Chávez, who is elucidated by referring to one of Revueltas’ later stories, ‘Hegel y present in the audience and is compelled to stand and applaud upon yo,’ as it addresses in more detail what one of its protagonists calls the conclusion of the speech, which is noted by the party leaders. an ‘acto profundo’ and its relation to the absence of an origin that The novels’ response to the party’s notion of subjectivity is de- would allow for a predictable relation between thought and action. veloped in Los errores in the stories’ of the characters of Mario and The story takes place in the notorious Lecumberri prison (where Lucrecia, which dramatize the gap between thought and action as Revueltas wrote the story), and the Hegel of the title is the narra- well as thought and the real that Ponce’s erroneous being asserts. tor’s cellmate. As the narrator attempts to understand how he has What we encounter as the narrative unfolds are subjects whose ended up in prison and estranged from his girlfriend, Hegel inter- thoughts and actions are conditioned by a knot of reason, the un- rupts his ruminations to explain that the answer to this question conscious, and memories of past traumas. To once again pick up resides in an originary act. Origin, derived from the Greek archē, the opening scene of the novel that takes place in the motel, Mario denotes a beginning as well as a command, that is, a determinative is standing in front of a mirror assessing his disguise. This moment ground that is the condition of possibility for a transparent relation in front of the mirror is a prelude to the action that will follow in between thought, language, and the world. It is an enigmatic act, the narrative, whose outcome, affirms the narrator, stands beyond Hegel explains, because on one hand nobody has any memory of it: the calculation of the protagonists, and thereby announces the gap ‘es tan antiguo que no se guarda memoria de su comienzo, nadie between the act and its incalculable outcomes, which will be dra- sabe de dónde arranca, en qué parte se inicia o si no se inicia en matized throughout Los errores: ‘dentro de algunos momentos, co- parte alguna’; this act, in effect, does not exist: ‘el acto profundo no menzarían todas las cosas, sin que ya nadie pudiera detenerlas, una tiene principio, no ha comenzado jamás…’ (20) Nonetheless, some- detrás de otra, sometidas a su destino propio’ (13). thing like a memory of this act is inscribed in a part of the self that is The double of Mario and his image in the mirror initially re- presubjective. He tells the narrator that this act ‘está inscrito en tu flects a sense of a unitary subject that then becomes perturbed as memoria Antigua, en lo más extraño de tu memoria, en tu memo- Mario observes himself. Regarding the experience of reflection, ria extraña, no dicha, no escrita, no pensada, apenas sentida’ (20). Martin Jay observes that ‘although the two images may be appar- Though it is unknown, one’s memory compulsively endeavors but ently identical, there is always a surplus, an invisible otherness, that fails to remember this originary act. It is both integral and hetero- necessarily disrupts their specular unity’ (505).5 The experience of geneous to one’s self: ‘Tú eres quien le pertenece, con lo que, por self-relation assumes a clear distinction between the interior of self ende, dejas de pertenecerte a ti mismo’ (20). Attempts to assign to from which one perceives and acts in an exterior world. However, it a proper name and coherent narrative are limited to various erro- we see that in this moment, as well as in a repeated sequence with neous explanations: ‘no hacen sino borrar sus huellas y falsificarlo, Lucrecia, self-reflection always involves an alterity that exists within erigiéndolo así en un Mito más o menos válido y aceptable durante the self in two senses: there is the other of the unconscious in this cierto periodo: Landrú, Gengis-Kan, Galileo, Napoleón, el Marqués scene and throughout the first story. As Mario gazes at himself, he de Sade o Jesuscristo o Lenin, da lo mismo’ (21). In the world of Re- senses that his actions do not entirely belong to him: ‘Con todo, los vueltas’ fiction, the origin is a paradoxical absent presence, a neces- gestos que el espejo había repetido no lograron disipar la sensación sary ground for thought and action that is at the same time impos- impune (…), donde las cosas previstas, calculadas, que iban a ocurrir sible to apprehend. y que él realizaría, de cualquier modo no eran suyas, o no suyas por In addition to the sections devoted to the ontological condi- completo’ (14). The second sense of otherness is found in the way in tions that engender a divided subject, part of the deconstructive which the living present is continually traversed by the past and the strategy in Los errores includes the staging of a confrontation that anticipation of the future, as is demonstrated in this scene in which pits the notion of an ideal centered subject—espoused by the com- Mario’s consciousness is a continual oscillation between the pres- munist party leaders—against a sense of subjectivity that emerges ent, the past that he wishes to repress, and the future that he is sure in lived life that troubles this conception of subjectivity. This critique awaits him after the robbery. is illustrated in a passage that confronts a fundamental disjunction This same chapter reveals the memory of an event about whose between the party’s notion of a substantial, transcendental subject influence Mario is unaware and engenders fateful consequences. In and lived human experience. In a speech at a party tribunal that is one of the few moments that the narrator comments in the first deliberating on whether to expel a party militant, Olenka Delnova, person, the reader’s attention is called to Mario’s physical character- 36 • Latin American Literary Review The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject istics, which bear a strong resemblance to his mother. The narrator bién de este lado, donde estaba el Mario Cobián real, irreflejable y describes these traits as belonging to him and not belonging at the secreto, aquel conjunto de hechos, situaciones y relaciones que era same time, indicating an inner exteriority. ‘He aquí, empero, unos El Muñeco’ (16). There is, moreover, the two antithetical lexical pairs rasgos: aunque tampoco suyos, tampoco pertenecientes en forma in the sentence that evoke both transparency (reflejado, real) and estricta a su persona (…) puestos ahí por un pasado anterior a su pro- opacity (irreflejable, secreto) that exist uneasily beside each other. pia vida, anterior a su nacimiento: los rasgos del rostro de su madre’ But who is Lucrecia? Though she is a central character, she ap- (14). The reader is given to understand that Mario’s mother is no lon- pears only in the middle of the narrative. Previous to that moment, ger alive but haunts him. The memory of his mother is integral to the the reader learns of her through the perspective of Mario and her action he will carry out: ‘Ella lo acompañaría, ella lo protegería con fellow prostitutes. Part of Mario’s convoluted scheme to rob Don su presencia invisible e íntima’ (14). There is an oedipal ambivalence Victorino involves leaving a large valise, which contains his accom- that we find towards the end of this moment in front of the mirror plice Elena, in the office of the loan shark, and returning for it later that is linked to something that happened when Mario was a child, when Don Victorino closes his storefront for the day. Mario has a few whose repressed memory forces its way into his consciousness. hours before he goes back to pull off the robbery and decides to find The narrator explains that this event begins with a young Ma- Lucrecia and tell her about his plans. When he does not find her in rio, who wants to produce another supreme act that is an expres- the usual places, he grows increasingly desperate and we see once sion of his will and agency. One day he climbs up on the roof of the again the dissonance between actions and their intended outcomes neighboring tenement building and fires a pistol at the water tower prefigured here: ‘El plan no se desarrollaba conforme a lo previsto, of the building where he lives, causing a commotion among the sino que tomaba sus caminos propios’ (114). As Mario searches, the neighbors. At some point later Mario returns to the roof, but instead reader is introduced to Lucrecia, who we come to learn is preparing of shooting at the water tower, he impulsively fires into an apart- to escape from Mario by leaving Mexico City. ment. After pulling the trigger, the passage narrated in the third In this introductory scene Lucrecia is standing in front of a mir- person but focalized on Mario describes him as languidly reclining, ror shortly before she leaves the city to start a new life in Veracruz. ‘como después de una larga jornada amorosa’ (19). As neighbors In addition to the figure of the double, the narrative is marked by begin to gather in the apartment where Mario fired the pistol, he repetition, as is evidenced in this passage, given its likeness to the remains on the roof, feeling a ‘cierta especie de delirio abismal y opening scene of the novel. Both Lucrecia and Mario stand before a dulce,’ comparing himself to a god or to a magician (20). When Ma- mirror just before they attempt to accomplish their supreme acts of rio finally makes his way to his apartment building, the account be- will. However, the doubling does not imply sameness but rather the comes opaque, but the reader gathers that Mario has unintention- difference that exists in the figure of the double. What leads each ally shot and killed his mother. The bedroom into which he assumed character to this point is an aleatory and overdetermined number he was shooting becomes his mother’s bedroom. Mario enters his of factors. In this scene, the mirror signals not a mere reflection but apartment to find his mother, sitting with her back to him, motion- an interior disjuncture. When Lucrecia observes her image, she ap- less. He recalls a noise that came from her body and sounded as if pears as a stranger to herself: it were filling an imaginary cup. As an adult, he associates this noise to his girlfriend Lucrecia: ‘La propia Lucrecia era parte de ese ruido, En conjunto, un rostro sugerente, extraño, cuyas expre- estaba inodada en aquella especie de conjura, en todos esos turbios siones resultaban siempre imprevisibles para Lucrecia y siniestros manejos fisiológicos’ (22). Mario’s plans to rob Don Vic- (…) Hoy se veía fatigada, sin voluntad, a la deriva, pero torino and start a new life with Lucrecia are conditioned by the rela- no se advertían su desesperación ni su pánico interiores. tionship between he and his mother, more than any sovereign will Aunque también la parte que correspondía al espejo era to bring about a supreme act. real: una vaciedad completa, un desgano, un desfalleci- Moreover, the awareness of a fissured subject is emphasized miento de suicida (130). in the varying use of names throughout the narrative that refer to this protagonist as both Mario and El Muñeco, the name by which By leaving Mario and her life behind, Lucrecia is another character he is known in the neighborhood where he lives and works. In one attempting a supreme act, a forceful break from the past and particular moment, the narrator relates the interaction between present. Mario and the front desk manager of the motel in which Mario is There is also a marked compulsion to repetition in Lucrecia’s recognized, or interpellated, as a traveling salesman. At this point life, which is indicated in the metaphor that the narrator uses to de- the costume is much more than a disguise; it confirms what the nar- scribe Lucrecia’s sense of being in the world as that of living in a rator calls Mario’s doubling or division. The sentence that fittingly prison. Though not physically imprisoned, she feels that the string concludes this sequence is made up of fragments and conveys a of abusive men with whom she continually becomes entangled re- self that exceeds one’s proper name and requires supplementation: semble the circumscribed and isolating experience of prison cells. ‘Reflejado en el espejo como un simple agente de ventas, pero tam- We are meant to understand that this repetition is tied to the trau- The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject Latin American Literary Review • 37 ma of being effectively abandoned by her parents, though they a life with Mario. were present in Lucrecia’s life. The figure of prison is one of rep- These concerns are further developed as it relates to the ethi- etition and difference: ‘El padre borracho, Ralph, la miseria, otros cal and political realms and ask after the conditions through which hombres, prostíbulos: distintas celdas de esa única larga cárcel que one’s acts are considered ethical and politically effective. This is era el haber nacido a la vida’ (133). At one point we learn that Lu- again a question of the status of thought, language, and action as crecia was involved with Mike, a boy that she adopted after he was they relate to the real. Specifically, it concerns the status of truth, abandoned by his parents. Lucrecia’s relationship with the boy rein- which serves to guide ethical and political action for the centered forces the incestuous relationship between Mario and his mother. subject. If we take into account the ontological coordinates detailed As the narrator relates, ‘Mario amaba su madrecita santa del mismo in Revueltas’ fiction, then the existence of any stable, eternal truth modo en que Mike a Lucrecia, con los mismos sucios y ardientes de- is put in doubt. This assertion has implications for the conditions of seos, como si la matara’ (136). Both cases evoke a putative rational possibility for ethico-political thought and action of the centered subject that is divided by taboo desires. subject. In particular, the novel focuses on the status of sovereignty As the reader finds out, and perhaps suspects from the begin- and the logic of ultimate ends that guide actions. What informs the ning, very little turns out for the characters in Los errores quite like action of the ethico-political subjects that populate the novel is not they plan it. Each of the two stories in the novel present a sort of so much the force of a truth or the perceived unfolding of a des- empirical case in which the intentions of the acting subject and the tiny, but rather calculation, violence, the unconscious, and a sort outcomes of action are at odds. Jacques Derrida elucidates this in- of thanato-politics that moves towards death as opposed to some congruity in which a knot of various elements gives way to chance: final reconciliation in life. ‘a decision has to be prepared by reflection and knowledge, but the In one instance, the ethico-political act is subjecting oneself to moment of the decision, and thus the moment of responsibility, the sovereign authority of the party, which is by definition an au- supposes a rupture with knowledge, and therefore an opening to tonomous, uniform subject. Straying from or criticizing the party the incalculable—a sort of ‘passive’ decision’ (A Taste 61). The con- line, as Revueltas was accused of on many occasions, calls for cen- tingent outcomes of action suggest a future that is incalculable, sure, excommunication, or worse. As a result of calling the unitary which is emblematized in the repeated image of characters that subject into question, the novel also impugns the grounds on which tremble or fall to their knees at moments of dramatic pivots in the the party is considered legitimate and thus authorized to represent first story. Don Victorino, the hardened former porfirista soldier, se- the other members who subject themselves to its power. If there is cretly trembles in anticipation of his future death (61). In the same no access to truth, or if the predestined role of the party is absent, way, the prostitute La Magnífica begs her friend La Jaiba to allow then the legitimacy of the party is in question. Los errores deems her to run away from Mexico City with Mario (189). And finally, Ma- the party’s claim to sovereign power as a secularization of a theo- rio falls on his knees before the militants whom he confuses for po- logical concept that replaces the party for the figure of God as ab- lice agents looking to arrest him (186). solute authority. In the novel, the critique is framed in terms of an The contingent nature of action is also embodied in the de- equivalence between the party and the voice of God, as well as in nouement of the first story in which a certain necessity prevails, the repeated analogies between the party leaders and ecclesiastical but one that adheres to chance rather than any eternal principle figures, such as priests and inquisitors. In addition, party doctrine or law. Mario eventually finds Lucrecia and beats her for trying to is referred to as a ‘red theology.’ At one particularly emphatic mo- leave him. As he flees from her apartment, Mario believes that he ment in Los errores, Chávez says: has killed her. The robbery goes terribly wrong and Mario’s plans are ultimately thwarted. His accomplice, Elena, kills Don Victorino. Ma- Creer que se tiene la razón y la verdad en virtud de un rio in turn murders Elena and attempts to make off with the money. sistema de revelaciones divinas, del que se nos habrá As he is looking for a place to count the money, Mario encounters hecho gracias quién sabe por qué ni a cuenta de qué pref- two of the communist militants from the second story, whom he erencia especial. ‘La voz del partido es la voz de Dios.’ (…) comes across in an earlier scene, and mistakes for the police. Believ- Pero esta creencia, esta convicción, no representaba, ni ing that they are aware of the robbery, as well as the murder of his con mucho, una actitud inofensiva (…) Había algo aún accomplice and Lucrecia, Mario pleads with them to let him go. He más tremendo y desazonante en todas sus implicaciones turns over the money to the bewildered militants and flees, seeking (270). to hide out with one of the prostitutes. Mario, however, is betrayed by another prostitute for what she believes is the murder of Lucre- What is unsettling in this assertion for Chávez is that this thinking cia. In the end, Mario is not able to leave the capital, but obtains engenders a logic of sacrifice in which the party’s actions are per- a form of legal employment when he is blackmailed into being a mitted, no matter how abominable they are, as long as it furthers police informant. We find that Lucrecia survives Mario’s attack, and the ends of a redeemed or reconciled humanity. What ensures in the hospital, where she is recovering, Lucrecia resigns herself to power for the party in the novel, however, is neither any particular 38 • Latin American Literary Review The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject truth nor destiny, but the force of violence. To be sure, the novel himself. Towards the end of the novel, there is a confrontation be- foregrounds the calculations, the expulsions, and the assassinations tween the communists and the anti-communist league before the carried out by the party in Mexico and the Soviet Union. In particu- beginning of the general strike. Despite his criticism of the party, lar, it details the fate of a fellow communist from Mexico, Emilio Pa- Chávez participates in the strike. Two incidents occur in the course dilla, who was imprisoned in the Soviet Union and later died under of this sequence. In the first, he foils the party’s plan to assassinate mysterious circumstances; and Olenka Delnova, a militant who is another dissident in the confusion of the strike in order to blame expelled from the party and then disappears. The party attempts the murder on the enemy. In this act, Chávez interrupts the sacrifi- to cover over this condition by prohibiting any talk of these party cial logic of the party. The second event that takes place is puzzling members, but their names are evoked throughout the novel, along but significant. In what appears to be an accident, Chávez shoots with some of the victims of the Trials of Moscow, in the form of in- and kills a fellow militant, believing that he is firing at Nazario Vil- voluntary memories in the consciousness of Chávez, throughout legas, the leader of the anti-communist league. The narrative, now the story. These figures form a spectral presence that puts Chávez’s focalized on Chávez, becomes confused in a way that is comparable loyalty to the party in doubt and to which he attempts to respond. to the scene in which Mario shoots his mother mentioned above. The logic of sacrifice that is played out in party politics concerns Contrary to the narration of the events, he claims to have killed his ultimate ends. This is particularly clear in Los errores and the way partner on purpose: that it links the act of sacrifice to a philosophy of history that ends in final redemption. The cases of Delnova and Padilla, as well as the ¿Por qué él, un hombre como él, Olegario Chávez, Russian victims of Stalin’s trials, indicate an immunitary mechanism había podido llegar a ese extremo increíble, absurdo, at work that attempts to maintain the integrity of an order against de anulación propia, de dogmatismo fanático que le internal and external threats. But it is possible for this mechanism permitiera aceptar la comisión del más inicuo y cobarde to produce a sort of auto-immunitary crisis in which the beliefs, in- de crímenes, la muerte de un camarada desprevenido (…) stitutions, traditions, and, worse, the members of a particular order Algo se le dijo, en algún sitio del que no tenía memoria, are sacrificed, presumably in order to preserve the very same order. acerca de este crimen necesario (…) Pero no, por Dios, tal The novel suggests that this crisis is particularly deadly if the order is crimen no era necesario, ningún crimen era necesario. organized around the eschatological belief in a final reconciliation, (250) in which the auto-immunity becomes a veritable thanato-politics, oriented towards death. Los errores presents just such a crisis at He prevents one murder but carries out another, both ordered by work within the party, indicated by Chávez, who asks whether the the party leaders. For all of his opposition to the party, he is some- twentieth century ‘será designado como el siglo de los procesos de how convinced to participate in the assassination. The reader is not Moscú o como el siglo de la revolución de octubre’ (223). The re- privy to Chávez’s reasoning before the incident, but it seems plau- sponse in the novel marks an attempt to conceptualize this crisis sible that what leads him to accept the party’s plan is the shared that takes the form of an opposition between two types of political conviction of the promise of final reconciliation and his role as an subjects. The party leaders constitute the first type, principally the agent of this event. Chávez is captured by the police, who ignore characters Patricio Robles and Ismael Cabrera, who are regarded the murder of the militant and falsely charge him with the killing as priestly figures that betray Marx’s thought by turning it into a of Don Victorino as a part of an anti-communist media campaign. dogma. They and others like them are referred to as ‘oportunistas When the police take Chávez away, he offers no resistance. After y arribistas y poetas y “compañeros de ruta” y burócratas y clérigos he is captured, the party denies that he belonged to the party, and y paranoicos y gendarmes del espíritu (…)’ (235). The second type thus he constitutes one more necessary sacrifice. In addition to of political subject is the saintly communist, embodied by Olegario Chávez’s fate, things do not turn out for the communists like they Chávez, Jacobo Ponce, and Eladio Pintos, who remain faithful to a had planned: many of the party members are killed or imprisoned in non-institutionalized understanding of Marxism and suffer at the the unfolding of the events that are meant to commence the strike. hands of the inquisitorial party leaders. The former group accuses We are not given any more details regarding what occurs after the the saintly communists of willfully ignoring the necessary sacrifices protagonists’ disastrous outcome. demanded in the struggle to bring about the revolution and are As is almost always the case in the fiction of Revueltas, the therefore considered as betraying the shared communist destiny. protagonists of the novel face a tragic end and the constant eva- Again, Chávez opposes the logic or necessity of sacrifice. As sion of any hint of a movement towards some final reconciliation. the novel proceeds, however, the opposition between priest and Escalante acknowledges that Revueltas’ work is characterized by saint becomes ambivalent and thus complicates the duality of the a deep pessimism, but he chastises those critics who fail to under- two figures. Both assume a centered subject and, crucially, an un- stand that the dialectical movement of history is not always ascen- derstanding of history as moving towards some end. Indeed, an dant. The fiction of Revueltas describes a descending or degrading essential identity between saint and priest is revealed in Chávez turn that paradoxically moves towards an emancipatory end (del The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject Latin American Literary Review • 39 lado moridor 67). Still others, such as Enrique Ramírez y Ramírez, attention to an element that underlines thought and action beyond argue that Revueltas’s novels give way to a passivity or a form of any sort of deconstruction of presuppositions, what Derrida vari- mysticism. Similarly, Revueltas’ erstwhile friend Pablo Neruda writ- ously calls the ‘emancipatory promise,’ and ‘the promise of justice.’ ing about Los días terrenales declares in rather grandiloquent terms: In a reasoning that evokes Chávez’s enigmatic words, Derrida calls ‘Por las venas de aquel noble José Revueltas que conocí circula una for an opening or an ‘access to an affirmative thinking of the mes- sangre que no conozco. En ella se estanca el veneno de una época sianic and emancipatory promise as promise: as promise and not as pasada con un misticismo destructor que conduce a la nada y a la onto-theological or teleo-eschatological program or design’ (Spec- muerte’ (9). I affirm that the ending of Los errores gives way nei- ters of Marx 75). The ethics and a politics of a divided subject do not ther to a quietism nor to a rejection of politics. Together with the call for the rejection of this desire but a change of relation to it, from other elements that I have detailed here, they are concerned with destiny to promise. A promise in contrast to program here means the presuppositions of a centered, conscious subject. To think at the a commitment to something that cannot be named in a formula or limits of the category of the centered subject as it relates to our un- a set of laws. This is to say that it is not about bringing the world in derstanding of the relation between thought and action, as well as line with some eternal truth, but an orientation to a sense of justice language and the real, signifies important implications for politics that always exceeds the categories of any stable notion of differ- and ethics. ence and identity. Still, critics like Ramirez y Ramirez and Neruda raise some im- The notion of a conflict without end also refers to community. portant doubts regarding the deconstructive thrust of the novel: If the politics of the centered subject imply a collective that will give how are thought and language possible without some connection way, in the present or the future, to a community based on a fusion to the real? And, how is action possible without some thinking of of its members, producing a unitary collective identity, Los errores truth and ends? The deconstructive mode that is found in Los errores suggests a notion of community as a being-in-common without does give way at certain moments, if only obliquely, to an affirma- such a millenarian bond. Roberto Esposito elaborates on this un- tive thinking of what ethico-political thought and action beyond a derstanding of community: ‘community refers to the singular and centered subject entails. This is particularly evidenced in the final plural characteristic of an existence free from every meaning that is scene with Chávez in Los errores. After he is arrested by the police, presumed, imposed, or postponed; of a world reduced to itself that the reader is left with his confession of guilt and this paradoxical is capable of simply being what it is: a planetary world without di- fragment that concludes the chapter: ‘Pero, con todo, la lucha no rection, without any cardinal points’ (149). This notion of communi- terminaba, ni terminaría jamás. El socialismo y el comunismo eran ty does not necessarily prevent the auto-immunitary crises like the el porvenir de los hombres. Era preciso proseguir el combate sin one that Los errores dramatizes. But the novel is more interested descanso. Sí, pero…, ¿en qué dirección…?’ (252). The conviction in thinking of a politics that reduces rather than overcomes these of an unconditional destiny of socialism and communism appears often deadly crises. Los errores could be said to prefigure Revueltas’ alongside the idea of a fight that will never end, evoked in the tem- eventual move later in life away from the various communist parties porality of the grammatical tense, as well as in the negative adver- and towards the more experimental politics that he associated with bial phrase. The juxtaposition of these heterogeneous notions calls the student movement in Mexico.

NOTES

1 In the Obras completas, Revueltas’ political and theoretical writings more, to begin with, than that the objects do not go into their concepts make up nearly half of the 26 volumes. without leaving a remainder, that they come to contradict the traditional 2 Paz makes this assertion in two reviews that he wrote regarding Re- norm of adequacy (…) It indicates the untruth of identity, the fact that the vueltas’ novel El luto humano, which are reprinted for the introduction to concept does not exhaust the thing conceived’ (5). the English translation of the novel. 5 The critic Christopher Domínguez Michael also considers the preoc- 3 See, José Revueltas: una biografía intelectual. Mexico City: Miguel Án- cupation with mirrors in Revueltas. Looking into a convex mirror intimates gel Porrua, 2001. a disjuncture: ‘Pero al rechazar este espejo-que-sólo-refleja, Revueltas re- sume su obsesión por los espejos cóncavos, que registran y devuelven una 4 Ponce’s conception of the ser erróneo bears a strong likeness to The- imagen negativa, una mueca perturbadora’ (74). odor Adorno’s negative dialectic. In the introduction to his important work, Negative Dialectics, Adorno explains that ‘the name of dialectics says no 40 • Latin American Literary Review The Blind Knot: José Revueltas’ Los errores and the Subject

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Adorno, Theodor W. Negative Dialectics. Tr. E.B. Ashton. Seabury Press, Fuentes Morúa, Jorge. José Revueltas: una biografía intelectual. Miguel Án- 1973. Print. gel Porrua, 2001. Print. Agamben, Giorgio. The Use of Bodies. Tr. Adam Kotsko. Stanford University Jay, Martin. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century Press, 2015. Print. French Thought. University of California Press, 1994. Print. Bosteels, Bruno. “Marxismo y melodrama: reflexiones sobre Los errores de Negrín, Edith. Entre la paradoja y la dialéctica: una lectura de la narrative de José Revueltas.” In In El terreno de los días: homenaje a José Revueltas. José Revueltas. Colegio de Mexico and Universidad Nacional Autónoma Eds. Francisco Ramírez Santacruz and Martín Oyata. Miguel Ángel Por- de Mexico, 1995. Print. rua, 2007: 121-146. Print. Neruda, Pablo. “Introducción,” In Los días terrenales. Madrid: Babel, 2000. Cheron, Philippe. El árbol del oro: José Revueltas y el pesimismo ardiente. Print. Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez, 2003. Paz, Octavio. “Christianity and Revolution: Two Reviews of José Revueltas’s Derrida, Jacques. A Taste for the Secret. Tr. Giacomo Donis. Blackwell, 2001. Human Mourning. Tr. Roberto Crespi. University of Minnesota Univer- Print. sity Press, 1990: vii-xxi. Print. Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourn- Ramírez y Ramírez, Enrique. “Sobre una literatura de extravío.” In Los días ing, and the New International. Tr. Peggy Kamuf. Routledge, 1994. Print. terrenales, Edición Crítica. Ed. Evodio Escalante. CSIC Press, 1996: 337- Domínguez Michael, Christopher. “Lepra y utopia.” In Nocturno en que todo 351. Print. se oye. Ed. Edith Negrín. Ediciones Era, 1999. Print. Revueltas, José. Los muros de agua. Ediciones Era, 2013. Print. Escalante, Evodio. José Revueltas: una literatura ‘del lado moridor.’ Edicio- Revueltas, José. Los días terrenales. Babel, 2000. Print. nes sin nombre, 2006. Print. Revueltas, José. Los errores. Ediciones Era, 2014. Print. Escalante, Evodio. “El problema de la conciencia en Los errores de Revueltas, José. Material de los sueños. Ediciones Era, 2013. Print. José Revueltas.” Valenciana. Vol. 7, No. 14 (July, 2014): 197-207. Sánchez Prado, Ignacio. “‘Bienaventurados los marginados porque ellos http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid recibirán la redención’: José Revueltas y el vaciamiento literario del =S2007-25382014000200008. Accessed on 12/13/2016. marxismo.” In El terreno de los días: homenaje a José Revueltas. Eds. Esposito, Roberto. Communitas: The Origin and Destiny of Community. Tr. Francisco Ramírez Santacruz and Martín Oyata. Miguel Ángel Porrúa, Timothy Campbell. Stanford University Press, 2009. 2007: 147-173. Print. Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula.

Carmen Serrano University at Albany, SUNY

ABSTRACT: This article briefly analyzes the representation of death and the dead body in Cien años de soledad (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez to pave the way for a comprehensive examination of Isabel Allende’s novel La casa de los espíritus (1982) and her memoir Paula (1994), both of which draw from García Márquez’s novel. Collectively, the texts underscore the frailty of human life but quickly mask death’s threat by employing hyperbolic metaphors and analogies skewed in degrees that make characters’ deaths implausible and unreal. That is, the literary descriptions of corpses, especially those of young female ones, frequently encourage readers to see the body through trope, as something other than death, in which the deceased turn into sleeping beauties or otherworldly celestial splendors all of which suppress death’s ubiquitous and threatening presence. Because Allende and García Márquez more often describe female corpses than male ones, this article, in particular, analyzes the metaphoric language used to describe these female bodies, which are often transformed into mythic goddesses, sirens, or holy virgins, or transmogrified into foodstuffs or other non-human entities. The literary devices allow for the sublimation of death in Allende’s texts as they do in Cien años de soledad.

KEYWORDS: Isabel Allende, Corpses, Death, Female body, Gabriel García Márquez, Grotesque, Magical Realism, Religion

It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death life but quickly mask death’s threat by employing hyperbolic meta- It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: phors and analogies skewed to make characters’ deaths implausible you can stand only so much of it. and unreal. In addition to the manipulation of euphemistic figura- Because we cannot live frozen in fear, tive language, the authors mitigate death’s terror by incorporating we generate methods to soften death’s terror death-denying episodes of ascensions or other miraculous happenings. They describe events that breach the barrier between life and Irvin D. Yalom death, allowing the specters of the deceased to co-exist and inter- act with the living. Comparing examples from García Márquez’s At a wake or funeral, we might realize that our stay on earth is brief novel with those in Allende’s texts reveal how they both imagine and thus minimize this threat by turning to other thoughts that sup- remarkable, sometimes absurd, deaths and journeys to the after- press death’s ubiquitous presence. To this point Ernest Becker, in life. Both authors present a continuum between life and death that The Denial of Death, deftly illustrates that “the idea of death, the makes passing away less finite, as characters can remain connected fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else,” and, there- with the physical realm even in the hereafter. fore, we have created elaborate ways of making it illusory in order Despite there being several fruitful studies that compare to avoid confronting our mortality (ix). In literature, authors, too, these critically acclaimed texts—Robert Antoni, Mario Rojas, for ex- circumvent the terror of death and its accompanying corpse by us- ample—the language García Márquez and Allende use to describe ing words to highlight the heroic or peaceful aspects of the char- death and corpses has not, as of yet, been fully explored. By read- acter’s end, or by employing euphemisms that invoke an affected ing the aforementioned texts in conjunction, we can see how the beauty. Literary descriptions of corpses frequently encourage read- authors convert deaths and its accompanying corpses into an ab- ers to see the body through trope, as something other than death, straction that mitigates death’s terror. Allende’s works, much like in which the deceased turn into mythic heroes, sleeping beauties, or García Márquez’s, deploy figurative language that speak of death in otherworldly celestial splendors; all of this is to avoid the encounter terms of alterity—that is, they each treat death as something beau- with the corruption of the body and the abyss that death portends.1 tiful, sacred, magical and/or unusual, and quite unlike the prosaic This article examines notable representations of death and experience of everyday life.2 Thus, the language used in the texts— corpses in Cien años de soledad (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez marked by hyperbole and excess—redirects the reader’s focus from to better understand how Isabel Allende iterates and reimagines death to another order of being in the realm of heroic myth and the similar experiences in La casa de los espíritus (1982) and her memoir otherworldly images that transcend what is usually possible in the Paula (1994). Collectively, the texts underscore the frailty of human material world. 42 • Latin American Literary Review Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula.

With respect to the nineteenth century, Philippe Ariès, in The Remedios, through various literary devices, is allowed to out- Hour of Our Death, spotlights how artists often veil death with no- shine death and avoid decay altogether. Her end parodies that of tions of beauty. Thus, the corpse no longer represents mortality or the biblical and traditional accounts of the prophet Elijah and the something to be feared, but instead is turned into an aestheticized Assumption of Mary. Catholic tradition states that the Virgin Mary illusion. As Ariès states, “Death is concealing itself under the mask did not die but rather ascended to heaven. That is, the Virgin Mary’s of beauty” (473). The use of the corpse to denote art and beauty is physical departure, or miraculous abduction, is not described in fa- not limited to the nineteenth century but continues to operate as tal terms at all. By evoking the Assumption of Mary, García Márquez a common and appealing trope across literary genres. In the texts implicitly likens Remedios to Catholicism’s most venerated female examined here, the authors turn away from the corpse and the figure, in which both live eternally. Her physical body and soul will gloominess it might represent and evoke something other than live forever, unlike prosaic deaths, where the body decomposes. Yet death. García Márquez and Allende at times conceal death under a this ascension is treated humorously as well, and hardly evokes a mask of beauty and wonder, but they also employ other literary de- divine awakening or salvation as would be expected in a Christian vices that make death vanish from view. This rearticulating of death version. Furthermore, there is no transformative moment experi- into realms inspired by legends, illusion and/or art, functions also to enced by the family or the town as a result of her magical ascen- minimize death’s terror and threat. sion; events continue as if nothing happened. Most importantly, by Cieñ años de soledad and La casa de los espíritus are similar in comingling humor and the divine, Remedios’s heavenly and absurd that wars, coups, and civil unrest play pivotal roles in the unfolding of departure spares the reader from imagining real mortality. The fe- the plot. Many die during the course of each novel. However, while male beauty is saved from becoming a cadaver, turning into dust, the texts contain many corpses, they are discursively constructed in into nothing. such a manner that softens death’s terror by turning to myth, mir- The descriptions of a character’s final days are comical in other acles, and even humor to impede death from disturbing life. This instances too, as in the case of Ursula, the metaphoric mother and slight of hand arguably saves readers from being subsumed by the Eve of the town of Macondo, in which Cien años takes place. Ursula heaviness that mortality and its accompanying corpses brings. is the vessel of the Buendía family history; she is the one who prays García Márquez and Allende are drawn to death and corpses, for her family, and the one who warns them of the curse―marry- but then attempt to confront mortality by creating moments that ing within the familial bloodlines will produce children with pig’s prevent the abysmal from eclipsing life. The authors employ death- tails. Gene H. Bell-Villada suggests Ursula is an almost heroic fig- denying events whereby the borders between life and death be- ure whose “unflagging energy and ‘invincible heart’ help keep the come blurred, thus making the end to life more illusive: In Cien años family a going concern” (42-43). The loss of a woman of such status de soledad, the gypsy Melquiades returns from the dead, Pruden- would seem significant, but as she reaches her final days, Ursula is cio’s ghost visits the Buendías, while Remedios, la bella ascends to described as less than human. García Márquez employs absurdity heaven. Yet these marvelous departures and deaths are not neces- and humor that minimizes the tragic death of the matriarch. As Ur- sarily fear instilling, but rather humorous, absurd, or otherwise un- sula’s death approaches, she is described as a food-thing, a fetus, a real, thus making deaths and corpses less daunting. doll, a mummy, a cherry raisin, a monkey, and even a cricket. The Remedios, la bella, who certainly has the youth and beauty language transforms her from person into “thing” echoing what that would provoke despair if she were to die an usual death, has an Henri Bergson’s says in Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of Comic: almost divine end, which is presented amusingly. García Márquez “[W]e laugh every time a person gives us the impression of being dedicates several pages and many hyperbolic words to describe her a thing” (58). The oxymoronic words in the following passage de- otherworldly beauty. While privately the Buendías see that Reme- scribe the transformation of Ursula’s fading body: dios is feeble minded, odd, and obsessed with her own feces, others perceive her as an angelic and ominous creature. We learn she is so Poco a poco se fue reduciendo, fetizándose, momificán- beautiful that men lose all self-control, become crazed, and even dose en vida, hasta el punto de que en sus últimos me- plunge to their deaths after catching a glimpse of her lovely face. ses era una ciruela pasa perdida dentro del camisón, y el Yet the author does not destroy this extraordinary beauty by giv- brazo siempre alzado terminó por parecer la pata de una ing her a common death. García Márquez imagines her end in terms marimonda. Parecía una anciana recién nacida. (463) of alterity and the sacred: winds sweep her into heavens where she disappears, never to be seen again. And this marvelous departure Little by little she was shrinking, turning into a fetus, from the earthly realm spares the young and most beautiful woman becoming mummified in life to the point that in her last from experiencing bodily decay. In this way, this death is the maxi- months she was a cherry raisin lost inside of her night- mum representation of the negation of death, because the young gown, and the arm that she always kept raised looked virgin does not actually die. Her physical body remains intact as she like the paw of a marimonda monkey…. She look[ed] like is swept into the heavens, to eternity. a newborn old woman. (348) Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. Latin American Literary Review • 43

The narrator creates a confounding image of a shrinking and dehu- Aureliano Segundo had to push his way through the manized body. Moreover, the people around her are amused, not crowd to see the corpse of the aged virgin, ugly and despondent. Her great-grandchildren treat Ursula as a toy doll and discolored, with the black bandage on her hand and hide her in a grain closet, where the rats might eat her (Cien 463). wrapped in the magnificent shroud. She was laid out in Since they can’t hear her speak, they imagine that she has died just the parlor beside the box of letters. (288) like a grillito or little cricket (463). What would normally be treated as a great loss to the family and its sacred connection to the past is The language is plain, without the mournful tones of lengthy de- presented as something completely absurd, unreal, and irreverent. scriptions that might be evoked to describe the deaths of young, Collectively the incongruous words both diminish Ursula’s person- beautiful women in fiction. Unlike a romantic concept of death, hood and the threat embodied by death. The text suggests that she there is no siren or holy virgin, but rather a swift acknowledgement does not merit the sorrowful and despondent emotions bestowed of the body, the box of letters, and the “magnificent” shroud. The upon those who die young. In other words, Ursula’s death leaves a beautiful gown seems to be the only noteworthy art piece in this meaningful void in the family because she fulfilled a foundational death scene. role, but the narrator does not convey this loss. The juxtaposition of incongruous adjectives transfigures The use of unusual adjectives to describe deaths and corpses deaths and corpses into something unfamiliar and strange, which happens throughout the novel. When Amaranta receives a visit happens throughout the novel. Like Amaranta, a single sentence is from Death, the approach of her final days is described in the fol- used to describe the first Remedios’s death: lowing passage: “[L]a muerte le deparó el privilegio de anunciarse con varios años de anticipación…. La muerte no le dijo cuándo se Una semana antes de la fecha fijada para la boda, la iba a morir ni si su hora estaba señalada antes que la de Rebeca, pequeña Remedios despertó a medianoche empapada sino que le ordenó empezar a tejer su propia mortaja el próximo seis en un caldo caliente que explotó en sus entrañas con una de abril (394). [“[D]eath had awarded her the privilege of announc- especie de eructo desgarrador, y murió tres días después ing itself several years ahead of time…. Death did not tell her when envenenada por su propia sangre con un par de gemelos she was going to die or whether her hour was assigned before that atravesados en el vientre. (183) of Rebeca, but ordered her to begin sewing her own shroud on the next sixth of April” (284)]. Amaranta not only has enough time to One week before the dates set for the wedding, little Re- sew her own death shroud, she publicizes her departure to every- medios woke up in the middle of the night soaked in a one in town. Her final days are, as Arnold Penuel describes, a “theat- hot broth which had exploded in her insides with a kind of rically-presented death” (556); so, as the word theatrical suggests, tearing belch, and she died three days later, poisoned by marked by pretense. Amaranta not only performs a type of death her own blood, with a pair of twins crossed in her stom- spectacle, she also offers to carry messages and letters to the dead ach. (89) in the afterlife. In older traditions death was believed to announce its arrival (Ariès 6-7). This could mean that people received some Mixing the comical with the morbid, her death seems to have been sort of divine forewarning or supernatural premonition that in- provoked by a tremendous belch. The commingling of the words formed them of their passing, thus situating their end in some type caldo, eructo, and explotó, suggestive of a bad meal, describe a ri- of divine order, suggesting that God had called upon her soul. In this diculous and unbelievable end to life. Was this some sort of fatal way her death does not become a fearful or tragic event but an odd indigestion or a pregnancy gone awry? Regardless, there is little po- performance and anticipated transition from one life to another. etic or melancholic treatment of her passing by the narrator and no Unlike the more elaborate prose and vocabulary García other mention is made of her corpse in this passage. The narrator Márquez employs throughout the novel, the language to describe continues with the plot.3 Amaranta’s corpse is brief and unceremonious. Amaranta is like Re- Levity also informs José Arcadio Buendía’s, Macondo’s found- medios, in that she departs this earth a virgin. However, Amaranta er, superlative departure. In his old age he has lost his senses and is different in that she is a woman who has aged and lost her youth- is tied to a chestnut tree to live out his last days. This is hardly a ful splendor as illustrated in the following passage: humane manner to treat a mentally ill and ageing family member, yet the language employed to describe his final days converts his Cuando llego a la casa, Aureliano Segundo tuvo que death into a less lonely and more magical transition. According to abrirse paso a empujones por entre la muchedumbre, the narrator, José Arcadio Buendía is not alone under the tree. Pru- para ver el cadáver de la anciana doncella, fea y de mal dencio’s ghost, a man José Arcadio Buendía had killed years ago, color, con la venda negra en la mano y envuelta en la accompanies him. Evidently, the two men, once foes, have made mortaja primorosa. Estaba expuesto en la sala junto al peace with the past and even make plans to raise roosters in the cajón del correo. (398) afterlife. When the patriarch Buendía finally dies, the descriptions 44 • Latin American Literary Review Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. emphasize the magical falling flowers and the pungent perfume feasibility of fully and objectively articulating feelings of great loss that fill the landscape. Hardly any mention is made of his body, thus without evoking metaphors of otherness. illustrating how corpses, both female and male, are often eclipsed García Márquez’s Remedios, la bella is a clear model for Al- by other extraordinary happenings throughout the novel. Arguably, lende’s young protagonist, Rosa, la bella. They are similar in that his death is remarkable in that he knew his end was near, he had their remarkable beauty is described in detail and at length, yet time to prepare for it, and he even enjoyed the companionship of their earthly departures differ. Here, the most beautiful woman in his former enemy, now friend, Prudencio. Additionally, the magic the novel does die and her corpse is poetically described at length. and humor employed to describe his final days erase the tragic feel- This is a noteworthy difference between the two works’ rendering ings that would usually be associated with the death of a family pa- of analogous protagonists. García Márquez’s text—which hardly triarch. The narrator’s description of deaths and corpses, reveal a treats corpses—mitigates death’s terror mostly through humor and certain level of coolness and detachment, thus recalling Seymour by maintaining a certain affective distance from the characters. Menton’s characterization of the magical realist mode. This detach- Allende, too uses humor, but turns to metaphors of otherness to ment and objectivity also inform Allende’s text; however, there are describe a young female corpse in a detailed and sustained way, important differences too. that is also marked by melancholy. Unlike García Márquez’s narrator, the voices here describe the death of a young heroine, Rosa, Allende’s Deaths la bella, both as non-human object and with sober thoughtfulness that speaks to a female subjective presence. Critics have already noted that Cien años de soledad inspired Al- The death of Rosa, la bella, Esteban Trueba’s beloved, after lende’s La casa de los espíritus. Mario Rojas in “Un caleidoscopio drinking liquor laced with rat poison, conforms to the novel’s com- de espejos deordernados,” affirms that the “spirit” of Cien años de plication of linear approaches to narrative. Different points of view soledad consistently hovers over Allende’s text and the constant describe the young woman’s death, yet they are equally illusive. mirroring of the previous text could best be described as an intra- The various descriptions of the corpse, using opposing imagery, ar- textual caleidascope (217). That is, there is a mirroring, but also a ticulate the despondent feelings after a great loss, but also mask distortion of a reflected pattern. P. Gabrielle Foreman in “Past-On death’s presence. Hyperbolic language filling several pages- de Stories: History and the Magical Real, Morrison and Allende on scribes the postmortem preparation of the young heroine who has Call,” illustrates how, compared to García Márquez’s text, Allende left the earthly realm tragically and too soon. The author deploys both feminizes and politicizes the magical mode. Robert Antoni in the usual repertoire of descriptions associated with female death, “Parody or Piracy: The Relationship of ‘The House of the Spirits’ to attributing to the corpse an otherworldly beauty, but also provides ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’” argues that through the conscious a contrasting, and seemingly more nightmarish and grotesque de- and/or unconscious parodying of García Márquez’s novel, Allende scription. Allende converts Rosa’s death into abstraction, whereby discovers her own language, and focalizes female voices (18). Allen- the figurative language transforms her into both a mythic goddess de employs similar language already exploited by García Márquez, and dehumanized prey. which is “hyperbolic,” “oxymoronic,” and “crowded with metaphor” The contrasting versions of the autopsy have different moods. or as Antoni states, the language of magical realism (17). The ob- Whereas one purports to be objective, with erotic and melancholic vious echoing of García-Marquez’s novel has also created unease undertones, the other presents a gruesome depiction of the post- among critics as Beth Jorgensen underscores when she states that mortem process in which a monstrous vampire dehumanizes its it “hardly needs mentioning that the single most commonly—and victim. Both versions, nevertheless, are illusory: one a chilling and hotly debated—question for about a decade was the relationship of repulsive nightmare, the other an illusive dream. The contrasting Casa to Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad” (130). Given metaphors articulate the severity of Rosa’s premature death, which the various parallels established between the texts in terms of plot happens in the first few pages of the novel. During the autopsy the and style already, the argument here particularly focuses on how narrator employs hyperbolic metaphors that articulate both the literary devices allow for the sublimation of death in Allende’s texts myth and horror of the post mortem process. The two starkly op- as they do in Cien años de soledad. posing interpretations of the same exact event transform the body La casa de los espíritus conveys the Del Valle-Trueba family in a way that makes her death unreal. To die while young, female, saga that presumably unfolds in Chile during the emerging social- and beautiful could be considered the quintessential tragic death, ist movement of the twentieth century. Whereas the historical ac- one that usually calls for a more extended literary treatment, as is count of the patriarch, Esteban Trueba, is linear and authoritative, the case in Rosa’s autopsy. The way Esteban Trueba imagines her the female more intimate accounts allow for various, and even con- body echoes the way in which the romantics beautified, exalted, and tradictory, representations. The novel underscores the impossibility deified death (Ariès 582-83). Considering how to describe the death of giving a totalizing and purely singular description of any object of of a young woman also brings to mind Poe’s essay “The Philoso- study, especially as it relates to history, and also illustrates the un- phy of Composition.” Poe states that melancholy is the ideal poetic Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. Latin American Literary Review • 45 tone, and the most melancholic moment is the death of a beautiful and fixes her hair with great care. At the end of the autopsy, which women; “when it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death then some have interpreted as a kind of symbolic rape, the assistant pre- of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in pares her for the viewing:5 the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover” (812). Poe’s poems and En la cocina quedó Rosa en manos del ayudante, que la short stories often focused on female death and corpses, evoking lavó con una esponja, quitándole las manchas de sangre, despondent feelings, terror, and melancholy associated with the le colocó su camisa bordada para tapar el costurón que death of the young woman as illustrated in his poems “Ulalume” and tenía desde la garganta hasta el sexo y le acomodó el ca- “Annabel Lee” and his short story “Ligeia,” among others. Following bello. Después limpió los vestigios de su trabajo. (40) a long tradition in which female corpses are transformed into poetic objects, Esteban Trueba assumes the position of bereaved lover, and [The Doctor] went out of the room and Rosa was left in he turns to poetic language to describe Rosa’s body. the hands of the assistant, who wiped the bloodstains Rosa is the most beautiful women in the novel. In life her at- from her skin with a sponge, put her embroidered night- tributes were otherworldly: long, cascading green hair and yellow gown back over her chest to cover up the seam that ran eyes. She was fairy-like. She moved as if she were flying La( casa 33). from her throat all the way to her sex, and arranged her According to the third-person narrator, when she dies, she is more hair. Then he cleaned the mess that he and the doctor beautiful than ever (La casa 37). Young Esteban Trueba affirms this had made. (29) statement when he first sets eyes on his dead beloved. He recalls, “Allí estaba Rosa entre blancos pliegues de raso blanco en su blanco The assistant covers up Rosa’s corpse with an embroidered gown ataúd, que a los tres días de fallecida se conservaba intacta y era mil that hides the sewn-up destroyed body, which is another example veces más bella de lo que recordaba, porque en la muerte se había of how beauty is used to mask death’s presence. The broken corpse transformado sutilmente en la sirena que siempre fue en secreto” is reassembled, thus evoking a fantasy of wholeness and beauty. (44). [“There was Rosa in the folds of the white satin lining of her However, the narrator uses language that also undermines the fe- white coffin still intact three days after she died, and a thousand male dead body trope. times more beautiful than I remembered her, for in death Rosa had Rosa’s sister, Clara, experiences the autopsy in far different been subtly transformed into the mermaid she had always been in terms from those used by the omniscient narrator. On the night of secret” (34)].4 Instead of Rosa’s body simply being a dead corpse, the autopsy she sneaks out of her room and watches the process Esteban prefers to imagine her as a sirena, or siren—the charming from outside through a window. To Clara the scene is nightmar- and bewitching fabled virgin, such as those in the Odyssey. Assum- ish, horrific, and grotesque. When she sees her sister on the table, ing the position of bereaved lover, he turns to poetic language to Clara begins to tremble from fright, underscoring the overwhelm- describe Rosa. This is an example of how the narrator asks the reading scene. However, she also generates self-preserving language to er to interpret Rosa’s death figuratively. In other words, the narra- address and subvert the terror that Rosa’s corpse represents. The tor invites the reader to turn away from death and understand this words used to describe what Clara sees convey distortion, the un- event in terms of myth and poetry. real, and the frightening, but as inspired by fiction. Instead of seeing The third-person narrator’s description of the postmortem ex- this as a medical procedure or an “autopsy,” she sees it as a disem- amination by the doctor and his assistant reinforces the point that bowelment, as when she states that “la destriparon” (48). The ambi- death increases Rosa’s beauty. As the doctor prepares the body for ence is “amenazante” (48), threatening, not somber as it was from examination, the narrator uses erotic terms, such as “Esplendoro- the medical men’s point of view. Furthermore, she describes how sa desnudez de sirena” (38) [“Splendid body of a mermaid” (27)]. the family doctor “se había transformado en un vampiro gordo y Reference to sleep and the use of an ordinary kitchen table negate oscuro como los de las ilustraciones de los libros de su tío Marcos” death: “Rosa durmiendo desnuda sobre el mesón de la cocina” (38) (49) [transformed into a dark, fat vampire just like the ones in her [“Rosa naked and asleep on the kitchen table” (28)], even as the ref- uncle Marcos’s books (38)]. Clara filters her sister’s death through erence to her nudity eroticizes her. Rosa’s beauty and the beauty the gothic images that she had previously seen in her uncle’s books. of death itself overwhelms the assistant: “El ayudante, demasiado Instead of the sweet and wonderful family doctor, she now imag- emocionado por la hermosura de la muerta, no se resignaba a dejar- ines him as someone who is ghastly and monstrous. la cosida como un saco y sugirió acomodarla un poco” (39) [“The as- Whereas the first description of the autopsy described Rosa sistant, overcome by the young girl’s beauty, could not resign him- as whole, a complete body, Clara can only see an incomplete im- self to leaving her sewn up like a jacket and suggested that they fix age because the doctor’s body obstructs her view: “[V]ió las piernas her up a bit” (29)]. According to the narrator, the assistant is careful blanquísimas de su hermana y pies desnudos” (49) [She saw her sis- to suture the body so she will look more human, rather than a sewn ter’s snow-white legs and naked feet (38)]. The incision also contrib- jacket or saco, which also means a ‘sack’ in Spanish. He dresses her utes to a sense of fragmentation: 46 • Latin American Literary Review Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula.

En ese momento el doctor Cuevas se apartó y ella pudo ogizes and de-eroticizes the image of the female corpse, so often ver el horrendo espectáculo de Rosa acostada sobre el roused from the male subject position, especially exploited by the mármol, abierta en canal por un tajo profundo, con los romantics. Allende’s treatment of the most beautiful women in her intestinos puestos en su lado, dentro de la fuente de la novel might also be explained by Elisabeth Bronfen’s supposition on ensalada. (49) one of her chapters, expressing how “women writers install, comply with, critique and rewrite the cultural image repertoire that links the At that moment Dr. Cuevas moved aside and she was feminine subject position to a speaking through and out of death” able to see the dreadful spectacle of Rosa lying on her (xiii). That is, when describing Rosas’s death, the narrator does so back on the marble slab, a deep gash forming a canal subjectively, unlike García Márquez’s treatment of Remedios, la down the front of her body with her intestines beside her bella. In this sense Allende’s intervention challenges hegemonies, on the salad platter. (38) wherein women are often discursively treated as mere voiceless objects of beauty and contemplation. The female-centered voices Unlike the previous passage, there is no mention of Rosa’s beauty. then become “force-fields” that challenge patriarchy and other Rosa has been carved up, her insides placed on a platter, which forms of repression (Foreman 294). The attack on patriarchy is un- further underscores the grotesque imagery. Her sister sees her as like García Márquez’s novel, whose text, according to John Deveny incomplete, disassociated from her former alive self. Furthermore, and Juan Manuel Marcos, “reinforce the patriarchal values” that are Clara describes her sister’s head as being “torcida” (49) or twisted at times flagrant (85). Allende’s treatment of Rosa undermines the with the blood on her hair. Rosa’s eyes are closed, but Clara imag- male centered gaze which so often objectifies and aestheticizes fe- ines that they are open, and that she can see pleading in her sister’s male corpses. eyes. She also sees the autopsy as humiliating her sister. Clara imagines a chilling scene: a comingling of blood, innards, vampires, and Other Literary Deaths agony. Unlike the narrative descriptions that negate death by em- Yet not all female deaths in Allende’s novel are treated in the same ploying metaphors that connote desire, her descriptions reveal a manner. While Allende treats the young heroine’s body with more fragmented non-body. The suturing, that the assistant saw as re- attention when compared to García Márquez’s descriptions of spectful, in Clara’s eyes is dehumanizing. She observes that he uses Remedios, la bella, Allende describes life’s end for the elderly in a a hooked needle, like those used to sew mattresses. Thus, while the jovial mode that lacks melancholic undertones, so akin to García assistant saw suturing as treating the body better than a jacket, to Márquez’s rendition. The many examples of literary deaths illus- Clara it makes her sister a piece of furniture. For Clara, the nude, trate how both authors consistently and in varying degrees erase broken, dismembered body, is hardly human. She sees a horror fic- death via analogous figurative language. tion scene, not an erotic beauty. In Allende’s La casa de los espíritus, the matriarch, Nivea, ex- Arguably, Rosa’s death shocks and affects Clara profoundly be- periences a ridiculous death. Clara presages that her parents will cause she identifies closely with her, suggesting that Rosa’s death die, and Nivea responds, humorously, indicating their malfunction- presents a real threat to her own existence. For Clara, Rosa’s death ing old car will be the cause. And indeed, the car, which always had is a life-changing event and she does not say a word for nine years unreliable brakes, runs over Nivea as she tries to stop it. A metal afterwards. However, in watching the autopsy, Clara is able to save sheet, absurdly, strikes and decapitates her. The narrator’s ensuing herself from being completely engulfed by evoking otherness. She focus on the escapades surrounding Nivea’s missing head makes creates a distance between her living, whole body and the corpse. this gruesome end comical. Convinced the community will criticize Instead of seeing Rosa in terms of sameness, she transforms Rosa them for interring her without her head, the family holds a vigil with into a fragmented non-body and conjures unreal vampiric images a closed casket. Clara later finds the head, which she comments is a she had seen in fiction to mitigate death’s terror. Clara does not serious problem since they do not know what to do with it exactly. run away from the corpse immediately, but rather processes death She decides to store it in the basement, out of sight, where it is for- more subjectively. Yet, in the end she turns to metaphors, albeit gotten for many years. The head is later buried with Clara’s body. scary ones as found in fiction, and saves herself from being com- Nivea’s death is one that is humorous, absurd and grotesque, which pletely subsumed by death. is more akin to García Márquez’s bizarre deaths. Allende deals with Rosa’s corpse in a more sustained way as Esteban Trueba’s death also differs from the treatment of those compared to García Márquez’s death scenes, which avoid a pro- who die young and female. Told from his granddaughter’s point of longed engagement with corpses and the trauma they might repre- view, his death has almost no mention of his body: “Yo me senté a sent. Furthermore, Allende makes use of different narrative voices, su lado a esperar con él y la muerte no tardó en llegarle apacible- mostly female-centric ones, whereby she can treat Rosas death mente, sorprendiéndolo en el sueño…. Esteban Trueba pudo morir both objectively and subjectively. Through Clara, Allende demythol- feliz murmurando su nombre, Clara, clarísima, clarividente” (452). Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. Latin American Literary Review • 47

[“I sat beside him to wait with him, and death was not long in com- body, death, and corpse. As Paula is fading into death, Allende de- ing, taking him by surprise as he lay sleeping peacefully…. Esteban scribes her daughter in language that evokes the divine. Just like Trueba was able to die happy, murmuring her name: Clara, clear- with Remedios and Rosa, a young woman is transformed into a re- est, clairvoyant” (431)]. Esteban dies peacefully and happily, his ligious icon.6 Of her fading daughter Allende writes: “En su silla de granddaughter, Alba, beside him, joining his wife’s ghost. Suggest- ruedas, con los ojos vacíos, inmóvil y pálida, ella es un ángel que ing that Clara will accompany him in the afterlife makes the finality nos entreabre las puertas divinas para que nos asomemos a su in- less threatening, since the specter suggests a continuum and not an mensidad” (302) [“In her wheelchair, vacant-eyed, motionless, pale, absolute rupture with the earthly realm. The description of Trueba’s she is an angel opening doors to the divine so we may glimpse its body is unlike that of Rosa’s, whose body is described both as a non- immensity” (318)]. She uses metaphors to soften the image of the human entity and a poetic object of contemplation. sickly body, transforming it into a celestial image. Later, when she The language used to describe bodies conjures a magical is within hours of passing, the narrator states: “A pesar de todo ha otherness that minimizes death’s power. That is, the authors go embellecido, las manos y tobillos más finos, el cuello más largo, las to great lengths in tempering the characters’ terrible ends by em- mejillas pálidas donde resaltan dramáticas sus largas pestañas ne- ploying affected language, or other incongruous analogies that gras, su rostro tiene una expresión angélica, como si por fin hubiera convert death into something extraordinary or unusual. Allende’s expiado las dudas y encontrado la fuente divina que tanto buscó memoir Paula employs the same device. Paula is a creative non- (301-302)” [“But in spite of everything, she is more beautiful: her fiction piece, yet Allende evokes some of the same imagery found hands and ankles are finer, her neck longer, her pale cheeks dramat- in Cien años de Soledad and La casa de los espíritus to speak of her ically emphasize her long black eyelashes. Her face has an angelic daughter’s premature death. Paula’s porphyria-induced coma and expression, as if finally she had obliterated all doubt and found the passing, especially as narrated in the final pages of the book, is both divine fount she had sought so resolutely” (320)]. Here she reverts tragic and imbued with magic and wonder, much like those of the to the language of serene beauty her omniscient narrator and Este- young women in García Márquez’s and Allende’s fiction. ban Trueba used to describe Rosa’s body. In Paula Allende performs the almost unbearable task of de- During her coma, Allende imagines that Paula’s spirit visits her scribing her own daughter’s fading body by employing her art, writ- during her dreams, telling her that Paula is ready to part from the ing, as a way to process such a loss. She uses metaphors that sug- earthly realm. By doing so she reveals a magical connection with gest beauty, bravery, and peace to soften the great suffering that her daughter. Paula, according to the narrator, has a serene death a daughter’s death embodies. This approach is not unlike fiction, surrounded by her family and other loved ones and without pain. whereby authors invite readers to understand death in terms of Figurative language further transforms Paula’s death into a finality myth, poetry or anything else that is less death-like, as a means to conjuring the divine. Paula is transformed into an aestheticized po- ward off what this finality represents. In Paula her daughter’s death etic object, yet the author clearly, as her heartbreaking language is treated intimately and with great sadness that is more clearly suggests, transforms Paula into an “inseparable immortal.” Allende linked to the divine, which echoes how the romantics deified death, visualizes that she herself can travel and accompany Paula into the whereby a loved one could be transformed into “an inseparable im- heavens and afterlife: mortal” (Ariès 583). This conversion of the corpse into something that undermines material reality is the common thread that links Comenzó a elevarse y yo subí también colgada de la tela Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus, and Paula; however, in de su vestido. Escuché de nuevo la voz de la Memé: No Paula Allende intensifies the melancholic language to speak of her puedes ir con ella, ha bebido la poción de la muerte…. pero daughter’s death. me impulsé con mis últimas fuerzas y logré aferarme Critics have underscored that the memoir treats Paula’s death de su mano, dispuesta a no soltarla, y all llegar arriba vi “nominally” in favor of focusing on Allende’s own story. As Linda abrirse el techo y salimos juntas. (316) Maier proposes, “Allende’s impulse to take over the spotlight may here be attributed to her parental role and grief and to her quest She began to rise, and I with her, clinging to the cloth of her for creative empowerment in the face of bereavement” (237). Maier dress. Again I heard Memé’s voice: No one can go with her, writes that the memoir could easily have been titled Isabel (237). she has drunk the potion of death…But I pushed upward However, recalling Yalom’s words, one can stare at death for only with my last strength and grasped her hand, determined so long. Therefore, Allende’s turn away from her dying daughter to not to let go, and when we reached the top of the tower I focus on the world of the living, and on her life, in particular, is un- saw the roof open and we ascended together. (330) surprising. Especially when understanding that she wrote this while Paula—her other self—lay dying. Like Remedios, la bella, but without a tinge of comedy, Paula as- While most of the memoir centers on Allende’s life, at the cends to heaven; however, here Allende imagines that she can ac- book’s conclusion, the words focus on her daughter’s diseased company her and even assume her identity. Together, mother and 48 • Latin American Literary Review Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. daughter travel through the heavens, appreciating the earth one Death is the loneliest event imaginable, in which we exit the last time. During a type of lucid dream, Allende realizes that Paula world unaccompanied, lose our bodies, and forever part from the has left her body to enter the spiritual and mythic world. During this people we love in order to enter the vast unknown. The texts dis- travel their life energies coalesce. They both dissolve into one, into cussed here, whose pages are saturated with deathly themes and the magic of the universe. Ultimately, Paula continues to exist in cadavers, present a marvelous world in which finalities become the afterlife as a spirit and energy, still connected to the material amusing events, unreal happenings, or are displaced by descrip- world. She is part of the earth, sky, and wind, and Allende as well. tions of otherworldly and remarkable dreams. García Márquez’s The memoir ends with the following words “… soy Paula y también and Allende’s texts create fanciful situations that represent a soy yo misma soy nada y todo lo demás es esta vida y en otras, in- less morbid form of departure from the world, mitigating the mortal” (316) [“I am Paula and I am also Isabel, I am nothing and finality of death. The discussed literary deaths emphasize the all other things in this life and other lives, immortal” (330)]. Allende ways wherein it is impossible to stare at Death too long: García turns to otherworldly phenomena and the extraordinary, at times Márquez’s text uses humor and often converts corpses into thing- inspired by sacred belief systems, to come to terms with a great like objects. Allende too uses humor, but also turns to poetic loss. Moreover, like the young women in her fiction, Allende returns metaphors that allow women to speak of death intimately and to miracles, ghosts, and affected language in which Paula outshines subjectively. Collectively the texts rely on metaphors that evoke death and decay. Through aesthetic language that suggests alterity, otherness to “soften death’s terror.” Allende tries again to rub out Death.7

NOTES

1 Elisabeth Bronfen in Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the See also Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life,a Study Aesthetic addresses the ubiquitous overrepresentation of the dead female in Religious Sociology. body in art and literature, but also illustrates how figurative language sub- 3 As readers discover at the novel’s conclusion, Melquiades is a “God- limates death. Figurative language turns away from the corpse and the like, third-person-omniscient narrator” (Antoni 17-18). gloominess it might represent and evokes something other than death. 4 All translations are from The House of the Spirits. However, this paper illustrates how otherness is employed to speak of both male and female corpses. 5 See Phillip Swanson, 163. 2 See Sergey Zenkin, “Alterity and Sacrality in the Nineteenth Century.” 6This article is dedicated to my friend and mentor Maurice Westmore- land (1956 - 2018).

WORKS CITED

Allende, Isabel. La casa de los espíritus. Rayo, 2001. Bronfen, Elisabeth. Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity, and the Aes- Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. A.A. Knopf, 1985. thetic. Manchester UP, 1992. Allende, Isabel. Paula. Harper Libros, 1995. Deveny, John J., Jr., and Juan Manuel Marcos. “Women and Society in One Antoni, Robert. “Parody or Piracy: The Relationship of ‘The House of the Hundred Years of Solitude.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 22, no. 1, Spirits’ to ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’” Latin American Literary 1988, pp. 83–90. Review, vol. 16, no. 32, 1988, pp.16–28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/sta- Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a Study in Re- ble/20119492. ligious Sociology. Translated by Joseph Ward Swain: G. Allen & Unwin, Ariès, Philippe. The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Atti- 1915, California Digital Library https://archive.org/details/elementary- tudes toward Death over the Last One Thousand Years. Vintage Books, formso00durk. 1982. Foreman, P. Gabrielle. “Past-On Stories: History and the Magical Real, Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. Kindle ed., The Free Press, 1973. Morrison and Allende on Call.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Com- Bell-Villada, Gene H. “Names and Narrative Pattern in ‘One Hundred Years munity, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy Farris, Duke UP, of Solitude.’” Latin American Literary Review, vol. 9, no. 18, 1981, pp. 1995, pp. 285-03. 37-46. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20119255. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. Cien años de soledad. Cátedra, 2005. Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Trans- Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Harper Perennial, lated by Cloudesley 1991. Brereton and Fred Rothwell. The Macmillan Company, 1911. Jorgensen, Beth E. “‘Un Puñado de Críticos’: Navigating the Critical Read- ings of Isabel Allende’s Work.” Latin American Literary Review, vol. 30, no. 60, 2002, pp. 128–46 . JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20119885. Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. Latin American Literary Review • 49

Maier, Linda S. “Mourning Becomes ‘Paula’: The Writing Process as Therapy Rojas, Mario. “Un caleidoscopio de espejos deordernados.” Revista for Isabel Allende.” Hispania, vol. 86, no. 2, 2003, pp. 237–43. JSTOR, Iberoamericana, vol. 132-133, 1985, pp. 917-25. www.jstor.org/stable/20062834. Swanson, Phillip. “Isabel Allende.” A Companion to Latin American Women Menton, Seymour. Magic Realism Rediscovered, 1918-1981. Art Alliance P, Writers, edited by Brigida M. Pastor and Lloyd Hughes Davies. Tamesis, 1983. 2012, pp. 159-68. Penuel, Arnold M. “Death and the Maiden: Demythologization of Virginity Yalom, Irvin D. Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death. Kindle in García Márquez’s Cien Años De Soledad.” Hispania, vol. 66, no. 4, ed., Jossey-Bass, 2009. 1983, pp. 552–60. Zenkin, Sergey. “Alterity and Sacrality in the Nineteenth Century.” Intellec- JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/341466. tual History Review, vol. 26, no. 1, 2016, pp. 107–15. doi: 10.1080/17496 Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy of Composition.” 1846. The Works of Ed- 977.2015.1032133. gar Allan Poe, edited by Hervey Allen. Walter J. Black, 1927, pp. 812-20. Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía

Catalina Rodríguez Department of Spanish and Portuguese Northwestern University, Chicago, USA

ABSTRACT: La escritora mexicana Laura Méndez de Cuenca (1853-1928) funda y dirige una de las empresas periódicas más inusuales del fin de siglo XIX:La Revista Hispano-Americana (1895-96). Escrita en inglés y español y editada desde el puerto de San Francisco la Revista se proponía comunicar a todos los puertos americanos del pacífico a través de un discurso económico y comercial. En este artículo examino la manera en que la empresa periódica de Méndez, gracias a su carácter bilingüe, construye discursos diferenciados para dos tipos de público y crea un nuevo tipo de comunidad latinoamericana. Desde la Revista emerge la idea de fortalecer una “comunidad transpacífica” que pueda hacer frente a la sociedad estadunidense desde la que Méndez escribe. Sin embargo, si bien la comunidad transpacífica parte de restarle importancia a las fronteras nacionales, la preocupación de Méndez por la creación de una nación mexicana también es evidente. Así pues, este artículo evalúa cómo Méndez construye y propone un modelo femenino de ciudadanía mexicana en su tratado de educación e higiene El hogar mexicano (1910). La lectura en paralelo de varios artículos publicados en la Revista junto con pasajes y grabados del tratado permiten entender como la posición de Méndez está en tensión entre diferentes discursos: lo nacional frente a lo latinoamericano, el progreso comercial frente a la independencia económica, la civilización frente al rol casi inexistente de la mujer y los modelos ideales de comportamiento frente a la vida propia.

PALABRAS CLAVE: Laura Méndez de Cuenca. Mujeres escritoras. Siglo XIX. Comunidad Latinoamericana. Ciudadanía femenina.

A finales del siglo XIX en Latinoamérica las publicaciones periódicas primera publicación dirigida por una mujer en proponer, desde los dirigidas por mujeres empezaron a tomar fuerza y a proliferar en Estados Unidos, un enfoque temático completamente comercial diferentes contextos nacionales. Por ejemplo, el periódico transna- y en construir un discurso bilingüe que incluya a estadunidenses y cional El Búcaro Americano; periódico de las familias (1896-1908) que latinoamericano como parte de un mismo público. dirigía la peruana Clorinda Matto de Turner (1854-1909) tuvo tanto La Revista Hispano-Americana visibiliza una serie de tensiones circulación en gran parte de Sudamérica como una buena cantidad inmersas en el discurso de Laura Méndez: la posibilidad de crear de suscriptores1. La mayoría de las publicaciones dirigidas por mu- una comunidad transpacífica alterna y a la misma vez el deseo de jeres se centraban en temas como la religión, el rol de la mujer en la aprender de la identidad anglosajona; el interés por promover una sociedad, la educación de los hijos, el hogar y, en algunas ocasiones, identidad latinoamericana y también la preocupación por impulsar la publicación de obras literarias. Las mujeres empezaron a recla- la civilización de la propia nación mexicana; y la creación de un dis- mar su lugar en el espacio de la prensa desde una prolongación, en curso comercial que impulse la economía de los puertos del pacífico los periódicos, del mismo espacio doméstico. También a final de mientras se critica el interés puramente mercantil de los compra- siglo XIX, la mexicana Laura Méndez de Cuenca (1853-1928), expa- dores estadunidenses. El tratado sobre educación que Méndez pub- triada en San Francisco, se embarcó en la dirección y publicación licó en dos volúmenes titulado El Hogar Mexicano (1910) muestra de un periódico bilingüe dedicado al comercio entre los puertos otra cara de las mismas tensiones, su relación con una perspectiva del pacífico: la Revista Hispano-Americana (1895-1896). Esta pub- de género. En las páginas que siguen evaluaré cómo las atraccio- licación periódica es inusual no solo en su forma y contenido sino nes, repulsiones y tensiones se desarrollan y representan de formas también en sus condiciones de producción y distribución. Impresa complementarias en los dos proyectos de la escritora mexicana. en San Francisco la Revista Hispano-Americana tenía correspon- Evaluar la primera publicación periódica que dirigió en compara- sales en todos los puertos del pacífico y su discurso buscaba con- ción con apartes de su posterior tratado de educación e higiene per- struir una nueva alianza que usara los intereses comerciales como miten entender cómo Méndez está negociando constantemente motor para la unión. Aunque la mayoría de los artículos estaban es- una posición entre sus intereses transpacíficos y su identidad de critos en español la Revista proponía una publicación bilingüe capaz mujer mexicana. Esta negociación, además, demuestra cómo los de apelar a una comunidad más amplia. La revista de Méndez es la tipos de identidades que construye la autora no pueden escapar Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía Latin American Literary Review • 51 de una serie de estructuras de poder. Méndez está abrazando y a en su mayoría de la clase “acomodada” latinoamericana y por tanto la misma vez escapando de lo que significa ser una mujer mexicana en muchas ocasiones capaces de leer tanto en inglés como en es- que vive en los Estados Unidos en el final del siglo XIX. pañol. El interés de la revista era el de fortalecer las alianzas que los Laura Méndez de Cuenca estudió en una de las primeras es- países latinoamericanos parecían recibir de mejor agrado cuando se cuelas que ofrecían programas para mujeres, La Escuela de Artes construían desde el territorio norteamericano. y Oficios, dónde conoció al periodista Enrique Olavarria y Ferrarí Todos los números de la revista incluían dos frases a modo de (1844-1919) figura crucial en su carrera y en su entrada a la esfera eslogan: “The only Illustrated Journal on the Pacific Coast published pública de las letras mexicanas. La reputación literaria de Mén- in Spanish Language.” (Scheleiden, Cuenca y Co 2, Nº 1) y “Devoted dez fue rápidamente superada por el rumor de su relación con el to the development of the trade of the Pacific Coast with the repub- poeta Manuel Acuña, su embarazo y después su matrimonio con el lics of Mexico, Central and South America” (2, Nº 1) (Figura 1). escritor Agustín Cuenca (Bazant 38). Como cuenta en su biografía Milada Bazant, a lo largo de su vida Méndez rompió con todos los esquemas de comportamiento de su clase y sexo: dejo la casa de sus padres sin haberse casado, tuvo un hijo fuera de su matrimonio, vivió de su pluma y de su trabajo como profesora y compartió su hogar por diez años con otra mujer. De todos los detalles de la vida de Méndez sobresale su migración con dos hijos pequeños a San Francisco, donde enseñó español a mujeres de la clase alta estadunidense para sobrevivir. Desde San Francisco y en su condición de madre soltera, continuó colaborando con periódicos mexicanos. Este primer viaje, el primero de muchos, condiciona su perspectiva, su voz autoral y sobre todo las posibilidades de los proyectos literarios y periodísticos que emprende. Figura 1: Eslogan de la revista. Revista Hispanoamericana. Febrero de 1895, Comunidad “transpacífica” año 1, n 1. Fuente: Hemeroteca Nacional de México, UNAM.

La Revista-Hispano-Americana se publicó entre 1895 y 1896 men- La construcción gramatical de la segunda de estas dos frases sualmente con artículos en inglés y en español. Es una de las prim- llama la atención por reproducir usos de conectores más comunes eras publicaciones periódicas dirigidas por una mujer en Latinoa- en el español que en el inglés. El sonido de la frase, que además se mérica que propone una perspectiva totalmente comercial. Laura repite en cada uno de los números, refiere directamente a una len- Méndez emprendió este proyecto junto con el cónsul de Argentina gua extranjera. Esta sensación que deja un inglés que suena extran- Jose Scheleiden que conoció en una velada literaria. Scheleiden era jero funciona como un abrebocas para un fenómeno presente en dueño de una compañía de envíos marítimos y corredores de im- los otros números de la revista: un cambio abrupto entre el tipo de puestos. Los contactos comerciales y los intereses del cónsul fueron discurso que se elabora de una lengua a otra. La revista permite que cruciales para la fundación de la empresa periódica. La Revista em- dos tipos de discurso, que parten de un reconocimiento de diferen- pezó publicándose a nombre del consorcio “Scheleiden, Cuenca & tes audiencias, convivan en uno solo. Co” y cada uno de los editores estaba a cargo de una de las sec- Un ejemplo claro de cómo opera esta diferenciación se encuen- ciones. Solo dos números después Méndez tuvo que continuar su tra en la lectura de dos artículos con intenciones similares, uno en proyecto ahora con la sociedad de C. Harold Howard, profesor de inglés y otro en español: “The objects of this journal” y “Nuestra la Universidad de California. Pronto Méndez y Howard decidieron posición en la prensa”: contratar a Thomas Savage, quien fue presentado como redactor y traductor. El final de la publicación llegó después de año y medio “To intelligently explain the great superiority we thus en- cuando Howard y Savage despojaron a Méndez de su parte de la joy over all competitors; to demonstrate by our market Revista aprovechando que ella no había firmado un contrato de so- and trade information that it is to the best interest of our ciedad claro2. El número de septiembre de 1896 simplemente apa- southern neighbors to do all their business with us, and rece sin el nombre de Méndez y en los artículos no se hace ninguna to keep and extend what we already have, will be the referencia al cambio de su estado con respecto a la revista. paramount object of this periodical (…) Our business men La revista se distribuía en su mayoría en las repúblicas latino- seem to lose sight of the fact that they are not selling americanas, en palabras de Méndez: “De cuatro mil ejemplares que goods to those unstable governments, but rather to the tiramos vendemos unos 30 en San Francisco, cosa de 120 en el resto merchants of those countries, a large majority of whom del país y lo demás en Centro y Sud América” (259). Los lectores eran are as honorable in their dealings and as competent to pay their obligations as we are ourselves” ( Mi énfasis 2, Nº 1). 52 • Latin American Literary Review Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía

“Para lograr que esta revista que con tan buenos aus- ción de canales para los barcos, mejora de las condiciones de pro- picios hemos establecido, no deje de cumplir lo que ex- ducción, disputas políticas, resúmenes de leyes, particularidades pusimos ya en nuestro programa: cooperar al desarrollo geográficas, entre otros. Desde los artículos en español se refleja de las repúblicas de México, América Central y del Sur, la intención de construir una comunidad latinoamericana “trans- haciendo que ellas entre sí se comuniquen y se estrechen pacífica” donde se informa sobre los acontecimientos de diferen- como procedentes de una misma raza, y que todas juntas tes países y se insiste permanentemente en la importancia de las entablen con California, el progresista Estado de Oro, una repúblicas centroamericanas. La Revista intenta entretejer un dis- serie de no interrumpidas transacciones comerciales que curso en el que todas las naciones hispanas del pacífico son igual- impriman en toda la costa de occidente una actividad mente importantes. La diferencia nacional participa como motor vivificadora” (Mi énfasis 3, Nº 1). que moviliza la creación de una comunidad que se extiende más allá de las fronteras nacionales. La repetición de artículos que hablan La diferenciación temática y de tono entre los artículos en inglés y sobre Colombia y Guatemala, por ejemplo, compensa los artículos en español propone una lectura de la publicación como organismo dedicados a México. Méndez incluye reclamos por el mal funciona- capaz de ofrecer una opinión polifónica útil para dos comunidades miento del correo postal con la república de Guatemala, una sección muy diferentes. La alianza transpacífica se establece solo en titulada “América Latina” que contiene crónicas detalladas de dife- términos comerciales enfatizando la diferencia “racial”. El artículo rentes repúblicas y sobre todo muchos consejos para que los latino- en inglés, que se puede intuir redacta Schneider, parte de la americanos que llegan a California eviten estafas y robos. confirmación de una superioridad estadunidense para promover el Todos estos artículos se acompañan de la “Revista comercial” comercio con las repúblicas latinoamericanas. El artículo en español, siempre en las páginas finales de la publicación y encargada de reg- que parece venir de la pluma de Méndez, aconseja la creación de istrar los precios de plaza y los cambios de valor de diferentes mer- una alianza “racial” latinoamericana que luego se enfrente como cancías. La “Revista comercial” anuncia los productos que ofrecen potencia comercial al mercado de California. La pertenencia a varias casas de exportación, los detalles de compra y venta de ciertos diferentes contextos nacionales pasa a un segundo plano. El papel productos (Figura 2) y provee detalles de las casas comerciales más de los editores es el de regular los artículos dirigidos a determinada exitosas y comprometidas de San Francisco. También se detiene en sección del público y el de hablar desde un lugar intermedio que evaluar las tendencias y la manera en que ciertas mercancías se co- permita utilizar a favor de la empresa periódica y su mensaje, las tizan en el mercado internacional. En cada uno de los números se condiciones retóricas de los dos tipos de audiencias. A pesar de dedica una sección a una mercancía en particular. Por ejemplo, en el que la Revista se propone como un órgano dedicado a crear una primer número se incluye una “Revista del café” que habla de los pre- comunidad transpacífica de algún modo “unificada”, los artículos y cios y los diferentes tipos del café en las repúblicas latinoamericanas. el uso de los dos idiomas promueven una evidente diferenciación. La posición de Méndez frente a los objetivos de esta publicación se hace más clara en una carta que la autora le envía a Olavarría y Ferrari en la que asegura que cree “fácil situar en los Estados Unidos millares de subscripciones porque aquí el país, aunque riquísimo, está decadente y todos los capitalistas movidos por la ambición tienen los ojos puestos en México y buscan con avidez una fuente dónde beber información acerca del país” (Méndez 256). La autora manifiesta un reconocimiento de los intereses comerciales de Estados Unidos en México y, luego, en su revista lo usa como gancho para asegurar suscriptores. El reconocimiento de este interés le permite formular dos tipos casi opuestos de discurso que se aprovechan de la diferencia idiomática. El lector que solo habla español se lleva una imagen muy distinta de la Revista Hispano- Americana, de la que se lleva el suscriptor que solo habla inglés. Por su parte, el eventual lector bilingüe absorbe los dos discursos diferenciados y se posiciona en ese mismo lugar intermedio desde el que Méndez concibe la empresa periódica. A lo largo de los diferentes números de la Revista el lector se encuentra con muchos más artículos en español que en inglés. En Figura 2: Sección del artículo “Reseña del mercado”. Revista Hispano- los artículos en español se incluyen noticias importantes de varias americana. Febrero de 1895, año 1, n 1. Fuente: Hemeroteca Nacional de México, UNAM. repúblicas latinoamericanas: cambio de presidentes, construc-

Esta sección del periódico es probablemente la que más suscriptores Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía Latin American Literary Review • 53 promueve porque proporciona nociones detalladas de los mercados parte de señalar vivencias comunes que si bien parten de la base en dónde invertir y también información sobre las importaciones del idioma se representan también a través de experiencias de de meses anteriores divididas por países (Figura 3). Como un exclusión y segregación. Apoyar a los demás migrantes habla del instrumento para impulsar el comercio internacional la Revista reconocimiento de la necesidad de establecer nuevas y renovadas Hispano-Americana funciona como ninguna otra. La sección provee alianzas que no se centren en el contexto nacional. un resumen económico detallado que está siempre distanciado de Sin embargo, la procedencia nacional tiene un lugar importante los demás textos de la Revista. dentro de otros artículos de la revista. En mayo de 1896 se publica un artículo titulado “Radicación Patria” en el que se promociona el nuevo programa que promueve el gobierno de México para hacer “ventajosas proposiciones a los mexicanos residentes en territorio norteamericano, que deseen volver a su país y radicarse.” (5, Nº 4). El gobierno mexicano ofrece once acres a los hombres, once a sus esposas, tres acres para cada hijo y siete acres a los individuos independientes. Los redactores cierran este corto anuncio con la siguiente frase: “Nuestros hermanos a quienes la miseria u otras causas extrañas a su voluntad, han obligado a permanecer en suelo extranjero, no deben desperdiciar la presente oportunidad que les facilita el modo de volver al seno querido de la patria” (5, Nº 4). La oportunidad se señala como una redención, como una renovada oportunidad de inscribirse en la comunidad nacional abandonada. “El seno querido de la patria” aparece en contraposición a la no pertenencia que Méndez reconoce para esos mismos sujetos ahora “racializados”, para usar sus propias palabras, en suelo Estadunidense. Con el regreso se elimina la necesidad inminente de adscribirse a un nuevo tipo de comunidad transpacífica alterna en el que diferencias nacionales y de clase pasan a un segundo plano. Figura 3: Resumen de las importaciones entre México y Estados Unidos. Las condiciones que comparten en suelo extranjero los his- Revista Hispanoamericana. Julio de 1895, año 1, n 6. Fuente: Hemeroteca panoamericanos, se proponen como un estado pasajero, como un Nacional de México, UNAM. estado del que no se debe “desperdiciar la oportunidad” de salir. La representación de estas identidades no se construye desde una per- Justo después de la “Revista comercial” los editores incluyen spectiva definitiva, sino que más bien habla de un reconocimiento un artículo titulado “Oficina de información”. Este es un anuncio de que las recién erguidas fronteras deben volver a atravesarse. Si de los servicios gratuitos que ofrecen los redactores en sus oficinas bien el tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo firmado en 1848 había dejado en el Mills Building de San Francisco: traducción, guía, asesoría a muchos mexicanos en una posición intermedia, con la consoli- comercial, referencias de hoteles y consejos. Hacen énfasis en dación de la nueva república también surge la posibilidad de mover manejar ambos idiomas, inglés y español, y dicen estar dispuestos a esos sujetos al sur de la nueva frontera, de radicarlos en la perdida tanto para latinoamericanos recién llegados a California, como para patria. La Revista de Méndez moviliza esa posibilidad mientras que “turistas y visitantes provenientes de repúblicas Hispanoamericanas a la misma vez crea una comunidad transpacífica latinoamericana y para los individuos de esos países residentes en San Francisco” (13, alterna capaz de responder a la no pertenencia, a la extranjería, que Nº 2). Aquí se anuncia también que la oficina de la Revista Hispano- condiciona a los hispanoamericanos en el territorio de California. Americana funciona como un centro de correo postal a dónde los El tipo de comunidad que aparece a partir de la Revista Hispano- latinoamericanos pueden acudir para asegurarse que sus paquetes Americana requiere comprender la existencia de una división racial lleguen a sus destinos. Los redactores comparan los servicios distinta. Como señalan Rodrigo Lazo y Jesse Alemán “once criollos ofrecidos en su oficina con aquellos que presta “The American enter the United States, they must confront a different racial taxon- Exchange” en Europa. El artículo “Oficinas de información” muestra omy inspired by Anglo/Latin opposition” (13). Esta nueva oposición cómo el proyecto de creación de una comunidad alterna se nutre permite borrar de manera temporal la pertenencia a los contextos de una preocupación por proveer a los migrantes de una conexión nacionales y crear una nueva comunidad ampliada y alterna que con sus respectivos contextos nacionales. La función casi de Méndez nombra en este caso particular “trans-pacífica”. embajada que se propone la Revista Hispano-Americana, y detrás de ella Méndez, es la de fortalecer los lazos de reconocimiento que ella encuentra posibles entre los diferentes hispanoamericanos que residen dentro y fuera de Estados Unidos. Su propuesta 54 • Latin American Literary Review Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía

Los hogares de Laura Méndez Las mujeres que aparecen en la Revista Hispano-Americana son todas ilustres, el discurso que los editores construyen en la La Revista Hispano-Americana intersecta discursos comercia- empresa periódica mezcla sin distinción de secciones textos que les con noticias, variedades y comentarios literarios. La preocupa- hablan de hombres o mujeres. La inclusión del texto de Soledad ción por demarcar un lugar restringido de lo femenino o por analizar Acosta, cuadro histórico que hace parte de un trabajo más largo de el rol de la mujer en la sociedad no hace parte de sus propósitos es- biografías de mujeres ilustres, no es gratuita. Méndez abre los po- pecíficos. Esto no significa, sin embargo, que laRevista se abstenga cos espacios que tiene la revista para salirse del discurso comercial de incluir discursos que marquen la participación de mujeres en mo- a voces de otras mujeres y a la suya. En la última frase que publica mentos cruciales. En el número de marzo de 1895, por ejemplo, se Méndez del estudio de Acosta se lee lo siguiente: incluye un artículo corto que enfatiza el rol femenino en un proceso político colonial. El artículo se titula “Liliukalani” y propone una re- “De este corto estudio se deduce, según pensamos, que flexión sobre la ex reina de Hawaii: las primeras mujeres que colonizaron a Bogotá no eran despreciables, (…) eran buenas madres de familia y ab- “La desventurada ex reina de las islas de Hawaii está ac- negadísimas esposas, puesto que acompañaban a los tualmente procesada y quizá a punto de pagar con la vida colonos en sus trabajos y penalidades, y a quienes debe- la debilidad de sus antecesores de haber abierto de par en mos estar muy agradecidos por la saludable y cristiana par las puertas del país a la inmigración anglosajona (…) influencia que tuvieron en la marca de la civilización en pero sea cual fueren los errores de gobierno monárquico nuestra patria” (Acosta 440, Nº 8). hay que convenir en que uno de los más crasos, fue dejar tomar creces al elemento extranjero que a título de El estudio que Acosta publicó originalmente en 1892 en el periódico civilizar al pueblo no ha hecho más que despojarlo de sus madrileño La España Moderna sobrepone el rol de las mujeres de derechos, de sus leyes y de su patria” (3, Nº3). los conquistadores al de los colonos. Acosta agradece a las mujeres, madres de familia y esposas, la civilización y no a los hombres. En La mirada de la redactora sobre la migración y posterior coloni- lo que respecta a su rol femenino Acosta las señala como mujeres zación de Hawaii es crítica y denuncia una usurpación que se en- románticas ejemplares. Es interesante que Méndez decida incluir marca en la excusa de la civilización. Este tipo de opinión resuena este artículo en su revista, sobre todo porque nos refiere a una pre- con partes posteriores de la obra de Méndez de Cuenca, como su gunta que se hará más presente y evidente en otros momentos de la colección de cuentos Simplezas (1910), en donde la escritora de- obra de la mexicana: ¿Cuál es el papel de una ciudadana en el desar- nuncia abiertamente injusticias raciales que se cometen contra rollo y la civilización de una nueva república? los mexicanos al norte de la nueva frontera. Es interesante pensar Cuando regresó a México Laura Méndez empezó a trabajar con en el papel que un artículo corto y crítico como este tiene dentro la secretaría de educación, fue profesora e inspectora en distintas de una empresa periódica que busca que un público anglosajón zonas de la ciudad de México y en la primera década del siglo XX reconozca las ventajas de invertir, producir y comprar en naciones fue enviada en una comisión para aprender de la educación en dife- latinoamericanas. Más aún cuando las afirmaciones del redactor en rentes repúblicas europeas. Desde Berlín, Méndez escribió una obra inglés hacen que las reseñas de las diferentes repúblicas asemejen que le otorgó gran fama en la época, un tratado sobre educación un catálogo a beneficio del mercado. La ex reina de Hawaii en este e higiene titulado El Hogar Mexicano. El texto publicado en 1910 artículo es representada como la víctima de la generosidad de su recopila una serie de consejos de higiene y educación para lograr pueblo y no como la culpable de las dinámicas de poder coloniales. que los niños y las niñas tengan un mejor desarrollo psicológico. Los Es sugerente que Méndez decida recurrir a una figura femenina consejos del tratado vienen de una perspectiva internacional, Mé- para hacer este tipo de denuncia. La mujer, en este caso la ex reina, ndez incluye grabados de los baños antisépticos que se empiezan aparece como una víctima de los procesos de civilización y no como a usar en Estados Unidos y Europa, así como imágenes de cocinas una ciudadana. No se trata solo de denunciar cómo el pueblo fue modernas. El hogar mexicano presenta una serie de consejos para sometido a título de civilización sino también de marcar la posición que desde el espacio doméstico se configuren nuevos individuos de la gobernante en el nuevo proceso. “Liliukalani” funciona como un mexicanos civilizados. reflejo de la manera en que la Revista Hispano-Americana inserta un Del tratado llaman la atención especialmente los grabados que discurso de género en páginas ilustradas dedicadas al comercio. Así acompañan los consejos de Méndez. El libro utiliza figuras tanto de como aparece el artículo sobre la ex reina de Hawaii, el lector encuen- niñas como de niños para ilustrar ejercicios fáciles y suaves de gim- tra un perfil sobre la primera dama de Guatemala, la novela Pobre nasia que constituyen, según ella, la mejor manera de mantener un Lucía de la escritora californiana Mercedes Medina y Orrendain y una cuerpo sano. Aunque la gimnasia era una preocupación común en la re-publicación de “La mujer española en Santafé de Bogotá” cuadro época poner imágenes de niñas y de niños en conjunto para ejem- histórico de la escritora colombiana Soledad Acosta (1833-1913). plificarla solía ser menos común. Por ejemplo, Méndez incluye una Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía Latin American Literary Review • 55 gráfica en la que detalla la diferencia de los saltos útiles para niños y niñas (Figura 4). La recomendación es que las niñas no salten con los dos pies, sino que lo hagan dando un paso largo. Se restringe la movilidad del cuerpo femenino que precisa de la gimnasia higiénica para que “un vestido elegante no parezca guiñapo” (Méndez 10).

Figura 4: Ejercicios de salto de niñas y niños. El hogar mexicano. Herrero Hermanos, 1910. Pg, 9. Fuente: Archivo General de la Nación, México.

Méndez combina el discurso de la higiene y la gimnasia con una apuesta por proponer a la mujer como pilar fundamental de la sociedad desde su papel de buena madre y buena educadora. La mujer es la encargada de producir nuevos ciudadanos y por tanto debe aprender a reconocer los diferentes niveles de civilización de- seados. Más adelante, Méndez incluye dos secuencias de imágenes que refieren al desarrollo de la vida del hombre y la mujer respec- tivamente (Figura 5 y 6). Las imágenes representan cuadros de secuencias que ilustran la manera en que el progreso y la educación influencian la construcción de ciudadanos.

Figura 5: Esquema del progreso para los hombres mexicanos. Figura 6: Esquema de labores para mujeres mexicanas. El hogar mexicano. Herrero Hermanos, 1910. Pg, 33 y 35. Fuente: Archivo General de la Nación, México. 56 • Latin American Literary Review Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía

La secuencia del hombre refleja una idea de progreso basada en nociones de trabajo. La descripción de las viñetas es la siguiente: “1. Un niño pobre 2. Aprende a trabajar 3. Trabaja para sus padres 4. Aprende siendo hombre 5. Estudia para progresar 6. Es solicita- do por honrado y hábil 7. Es propietario por sus ahorros 8. Llega a dueño de un taller 9. Tiene un hogar feliz” (33). El progreso del niño pobre depende de su propio interés en educarse, así como de su capacidad para ser honesto y ahorrador. Cualidades que se acom- pañan de aprender mientras se “es hombre” con una masculinidad que aparece representada por un sombrero, una libreta y la incur- sión en lo que se intuye como un espacio público. El difuso título de esta viñeta llama la atención por sugerir ambigüedades y descono- cimiento sobre lo que se reconoce como “ser hombre”. Los esfuer- zos del niño desembocan en un hogar feliz en el que la esposa y la hija aparecen como objetivo, casi como premio. La secuencia de viñetas sobre la mujer, que está separada solo por una página de la masculina, presenta ejemplos de ocupacio- nes “útiles”. La secuencia, además, aparece justo después de que Méndez critica la forma en que los instintos femeninos han estado siempre contenidos por el hombre. El texto propone que la mujer “debe compartir con el [hombre] el trabajo y la responsabilidad individual” (34). Entonces, las viñetas sobre el desarrollo femenino son más bien una ejemplificación de las labores domésticas que hacen de la mujer una compañera indispensable en ese hogar que aparece como premio al trabajo masculino. El argumento de Méndez busca erradicar la asociación de la actividad de la mujer únicamente con Figura 7: Ejemplo de una mujer escribiendo en su casa. El hogar mexicano. el ocio. La viñeta propone un tipo distinto de trabajo femenino en Herrero Hermanos, 1910. Pg, 86. Fuente: Archivo General de la Nación, el que se contradice el estereotipo de pasividad e inactividad sin re- México. futar la pertenencia al espacio doméstico. El tipo de progreso que se ilustra no es teleológico sino más bien repetitivo: “estudiando, Es interesante pensar en ese hogar mexicano ideal que con- bordando, planchando, dando lección de música” (35). La ciudada- struye Méndez en su tratado en contraposición al propio hogar de na ideal, la responsable del hogar mexicano, se representa como el la escritora en la misma época. Laura Méndez vivía en Berlín sola, motor de cualquier otro progreso posible. Sin su enseñanza, sin sus su hijo Horacio había muerto recientemente y su hija vivía en París. labores domésticas, sin su presencia que acompaña y ratifica, no Años antes había compartido su hogar con otra profesora mexi- hay posibilidad de construir un renovado e ideal ciudadano mexicana, Aurora, una de sus íntimas amigas. Por diez años las dos mu- cano. jeres vivieron juntas en St. Louis Missouri y después en la ciudad de En el capítulo siguiente la escritora desarrolla más la propuesta México. Aurora se refería a Méndez como “la ley” (Bazant 137) y se de las labores femeninas a partir de una reivindicación de la escri- encargaba de todas las labores domésticas mientras la escritora at- tura como ejercicio útil, inofensivo y necesario. Méndez aboga por endía congresos y eventos importantes (Bazant 104). Después de la utilidad de que las mujeres sepan llevar una correspondencia y el enviudar, Laura Méndez había mostrado poco interés en volverse hecho de que puedan reflexionar sobre sus propios pensamientos a casar o en asumir un rol como mujer del hogar. Siempre viajando escribiendo impresiones del día a día (99). Enmarcado en una esfera y siempre en las esferas literarias e intelectuales de los contextos privada, tanto en el texto como en los grabados (Figura 7), el ofi- adónde iba, Méndez precisó de otra mujer para que se encargara de cio de la escritura funciona como un movilizador de la actividad fe- las labores domésticas y del cuidado de su hogar. La convivencia de menina que reconfigura su condición y la hace más apta para asumir la escritora con su amiga íntima propone una reapropiación de las actividades independientes. labores asociadas al género. Cuando Bazant habla de Aurora se refiere a ella como “womanly woman” (104), mientras que en Méndez reconoce una fuerte semilla de virilidad. Su propio contexto, sin embargo, no cambia la manera en que la escritora configura el papel de la mujer como ciudadana en la sociedad mexicana. Méndez, apasionada lectora de Rousseau en su Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía Latin American Literary Review • 57 juventud (Bazant 27), crea en su tratado de modales, educación e modelos de civilización y libertad a los que aspira dejando atrás for- higiene una mujer romántica ideal para su contexto nacional que mas culturales de comportamiento frente a la familia y la sociedad. se aleja completamente de la mujer que ella es. Los dos hogares de Méndez parte desde un reconocimiento antagónico para construir Laura, el que representa en su libro y el propio, demuestran que el un modelo higiénico y comportamental que supere la diferencia y discurso que la mexicana construye no nace de la experiencia sino alivie la incomodidad. del reconocimiento de lo que debe ser una ciudadana ideal. La mujer mexicana debe ser una ciudadana modelo no solo La actividad femenina se revindica constreñida, restringida a para sumarse a los procesos de civilización de su país sino también lo doméstico, y se presenta como crucial para el proceso de civi- para desdecir de su supuesta inferioridad frente a la mujer anglo- lización. Es Laura Méndez, al regresar del viaje, quien entiende la sajona o europea. Así como en la Revista Hispano-Americana Laura necesidad de un modelo de comportamiento específico para hom- Méndez construye una nueva comunidad alterna desmarcada de bres y mujeres mexicanas. Sin embargo, y a diferencia de otras mu- contextos nacionales, una comunidad transpacífica, en El hogar jeres escritoras de la época3, ella no enmarca su vida en ninguno de mexicano propone la creación de una mujer ideal capaz de superar esos modelos comportamentales. la raíz de la división antagónica entre lo anglo y lo latino. Méndez se pone en el medio, habla desde el intersticio, y a partir del recono- Atracción y repulsión cimiento de una imposibilidad de pertenencia, construye una nueva comunidad femenina y transpacífica desmarcada del deseo de La creación de un modelo comportamental femenino y masculino pertenecer. se entrecruza con la preocupación por la división Latino/Anglo que Cuando se trata de proponer una ciudadanía femenina ideal Méndez identifica en su tiempo en San Francisco. En El hogar mexi- Méndez recurre a modelos románticos que confinan a la mujer a cano Méndez propone desde ese lugar de doble reconocimiento, un trabajo secundario doméstico. Su propia experiencia de vida, una lucha contra ciertos rasgos o comportamientos que se consti- por ajena, es incompatible con el proyecto de progreso nacional. La tuyen como un marcador “racial”: ciudadanía femenina que propone no es alterna, sino que se acomoda a una posición conservadora y patriarcal. La mujer mexicana “Con el ejercicio se evita la obesidad a que propende la debe alcanzar y superar, partiendo desde el reconocimiento y la mujer mexicana desde los veintiocho años en adelante, implementación de un binario Anglo/Latino antagónico, los mod- lo que la hace parecer vieja antes de serlo y desmerecer elos comportamentales femeninos de las naciones que Méndez en comparación con las norteamericanas, para quienes categoriza como civilizadas. El hogar mexicano se nutre de ejemplos no hay edad madura: siempre ágiles, airosas y esbeltas, extranjeros en los que se admira la higiene, el manejo del tiempo, pasan de la juventud, prolongada por la gimnasia hasta los avances tecnológicos y las costumbres, pero a la misma vez se los 35 o 40 años, a una vejez majestuosa y serena” (10). critica la frialdad, la coquetería y la condescendencia de las naciones anglosajonas. Lo que no queda del todo claro es si la ciudadanía fe- El párrafo presenta una nueva distinción marcada entre el fenotipo menina que quiere construir Méndez se educa en valores y modelos anglosajón y el mexicano. Los consejos de Méndez están tratando extranjeros para, también y de algún modo, disipar los estereotipos de cerrar la brecha que ella reconoce entre las mujeres norteameri- que marcan la discriminación de los sujetos latinoamericanos. La canas y las de su propio país. Las anglosajonas, a pesar que apare- propia segregación que Méndez experimenta condiciona el tipo de cen nombradas con tonos peyorativos en diferentes momentos de ciudadanía femenina ideal que propone. la obra de Méndez, son también de algún modo el modelo de civili- Por otro lado, la condición que ella llama “racial” de ser un his- zación al que la mexicana aspira. Citar como un hecho que las mu- panoamericano en Estados Unidos aparece como reversible, el re- jeres mexicanas envejecen más pronto y por lo tanto se ponen en greso a la patria redime la no pertenencia y reintegra al individuo a desventaja con respecto a las de los Estados Unidos señala su pro- una comunidad nacional. Lo que interesa es superar la exclusión y la pia conciencia de desventaja y “no-pertenencia”. La posicionalidad no pertenencia, pero no precisamente desde una conjugación de los que el fragmento del tratado señala se parece a aquella que iden- opuestos. Tanto en la Revista Hispano-Americana como en El Hogar tifica Eduarda Mansilla (1834-1892) en el flirt estadunidense: “For Mexicano la voz de Méndez funciona como una pieza para conectar Mansilla, the flirt signifies attraction and repulsion, an ambivalent dos experiencias diferenciadas, no con la intención de mezclarlas y figure whom she ultimately rejects for an alternative type of North proponer una nueva híbrida sino para, desde el reconocimiento de American womanhood” (Tirado 234). Para Méndez la feminidad es- la imposibilidad de la conjunción, proponer una membresía alterna tadunidense es doblemente atractiva y repulsiva porque encapsula particular en constante lucha por sobreponerse. 58 • Latin American Literary Review Los hogares de Laura Méndez. Comunidad transpacífica y ciudadanía

NOTAS

1 Ver Hintze, Gloria. “La revista Búcaro Americano y la presencia de la mi tardanza en contestar ésta tiene que referirse a un golpe que mi apre- mujer en el periodismo literario.” Para un estudio detallado de las publi- ciable socio me dio en la chapa del alma, quedándose con el periódico y caciones de mujeres en el siglo XIX en latinoamérica ver Bergmann, Em- sus pertenencias todas, por haber yo confiado en su lealtad y descuidado el ily. Women, culture, and politics in Latin America. Seminar on Feminism and contrato de sociedad” (Méndez 265). Culture in Latin America. 3 Un ejemplo es la ya mencionada Soledad Acosta que se reconocía en 2 Los detalles de esta polémica se encuentran en una carta de Agosto la sociedad como una esposa ejemplar y quien, además, aseguró siempre de 1896 que Méndez le envía al periodista Enrique Olavarría: “La causa de combinar su ejercicio literario con el cuidado de su hogar y de sus hijos.

OBRAS CITADAS

Acosta de Samper, Soledad. “La mujer española en Santafé de Bogotá”. _____. “Laura Méndez de Cuenca en Estados Unidos: Escritura y profesion- Revista Hispano-Americana, agosto 1895. Hemeroteca Nacional de alización de una cronista, maestra y editora romántica (1891-1898)”. México, UNAM, p. 437-439. No hay nación para este sexo. La re(d) pública transatlántica de las letras. Bazant, Milada. Laura Méndez de Cuenca: Mexican Feminist, 1853-1928. U. Iberoamericana, Vervuert, 2015. of Arizona P, 2018. Revista Publishing Company. “Revista del Mercado”. Revista Hispano- Hintze, Gloria. “La revista Búcaro Americano y la presencia de la mujer en Americana, febrero de 1895 a septiembre 1896 Hemeroteca Nacional el periodismo literario.” Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Facultad de Fi- de México, UNAM. Microfilm. losofía y Letras, 2000. Revista Publishing Company. “Liliukalani”. Revista Hispano-Americana, Lazo, Rodrigo & Jesse Alemán. Eds. “Introduction” The Latino Nineteenth marzo de 1895. Hemeroteca Nacional de México, UNAM. Microfilm. Century. New York U. P., 2016. Scheleiden, Cuenca y Co. Revista Hispano-Americana. Hemeroteca Nacio- Méndez de Cuenca, Laura. El Hogar Mexicano. Herrero Hermanos, 1910. nal de México, UNAM: febrero de 1895 a septiembre 1896. Microfilm. Mora, Pablo. “Cartas de Laura Méndez de Cuenca a Enrique Olavarría y _____. “Nuestra posición en la prensa”. Revista Hispano-Americana, febrero Ferrari: Dos promotores de la cultura mexicana.” Literatura mexicana. de 1895. Hemeroteca Nacional de México, UNAM. Revista semestral del Centro de Estudios literarios, vol 14, nº1, 2003, p _____. “The objects of this journal”. Revista Hispano-Americana, febrero de 255-256. 1895. Hemeroteca Nacional de México, UNAM. Tirado, Carrie. “Flirting in Yankeeland”. The Latino Nineteenth Century. New York U. P., 2016. Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

Nuestra once

Deni Lazo

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A memory of some of Chile’s traditions. The once is the Chilean tea time, which normally replaces dinner.

Los sábados tomaba once con mis abuelos, en la otra población. Mi mamá se quedaba en la casa con las guaguas. Por el frío. Medio hipnotizada miraba ese programa que a mis abuelos tanto les gustaba. Gozaban con ese programa que nunca terminaba “este viejo escandaloso que se ríe tan fuerte, vai a asustar a la niña”, reclamaba mi abuela siempre, y yo sentada a lo india frente a la tele. Nuestra once de los sábados. la estufa prendida impregnaba el hedor a parafina por todos lados que a mí me ponía los cachetes colorados. “Es muy blanquita la niña”. Sobre la estufa se entibiaba el agua del mate y del ulpo de nuestra once, de los tres. Por Que mi mamá se quedaba en la casa con las guaguas. Por el frío. “Es la cordillera”. Hacía tanto frío, mi abuela revolvía el ulpo yo me tomaba su mate y mi abuelo se reía con los chistes Era un concurso bien chistoso. “ya está este guatón, se ríe de todo el mundo, por qué mejor no muestra la guata y así nos reímos todos”, y sorbía mi abuela el mate que a ella le gustaba amargo. No sé cómo lo aguantaba tan amargo. A mí siempre me gustó tan dulce. Tanto que se reían el concursante pedía seguir jugando ¡y ganó! iluminado por la luz blanquecina que caía como una cascada brillante, apiladito, ordenadito el premio lo mostraban en pantalla la gente aplaudía al son de las fanfarrias. Cuatro meses de té Club etiqueta roja, cuatro meses de leche purita Calo en polvo, cuatro meses de manjar con nueces Soprole, cuatro meses de fideos San Remo y cuatro meses de salsa de tomates Salsital. Bajó al escenario la familia del concursante a abrazarlo. la señora con dos niños chicos y una guagua envuelta en un chal de lana rosada ahí mi abuelo lloró. Emocionado por el premio mientras mi abuela le pasaba la choca. “ya cabréate y tómate luego el ulpo mejor antes que te le enfríe” Nuestra once de los sábados los tres con mate y ulpo. Rica nuestra once de los sábados. Especial Algunas veces con marraqueta y cebolla frita. Olía tan rica la cebolla frita. Salía tan crujiente la marraqueta del tostador encima de la estufa. Mi abuela rellenaba el mate y me retaba porque yo no le dejaba nada y porque a mí me gustaba dulce, muy dulce el mate pero muy dulce, “me vai a gastar toda l’azúcar del mes”. De chiquitita me enseñó para la once mi abuela a tomar mate. De niña. Que mejor a mí gustara el mate más dulce. Bien dulce. Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

Carta al caballero de la triste figura

Lena Retamoso Urbano

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Lena Retamoso Urbano (Perú, 1978). Es poeta y profesora de literatura hispanoamericana y español. Se doctoró en culturas latinoamericanas, ibéricas e hispanas en el Graduate Center, City University of New York. Sus áreas de investigación incluyen poesía latinoamericana del siglo XX y XXI, vanguardia latinoamericana, el Boom, estudios trasatlánticos, poesía experimental, la poética del eros, y poesía, música y cine. Su trabajo poético incluye Blanco es el sueño de la noche (2008) y Milagros de ausencia (2002); sus poemas forman parte de antologías como Multilingual Anthology: The Americas Poetry Festival of New York 2015; sus cuentos y poemas han sido publicados en revistas literarias y culturales como Pomona Valley Review, Los bárbaros, El muro, Corresponding Voices, Casa de Citas y La voz. Sus artículos académicos han sido publicados en revistas de crítica literaria como Cuadernos de ALDEEU y LL Journal. Desde el 2018 se desempeña como profesora en Skidmore College.

Carta al caballero de la triste figura:

Espérame en la rama más alta de un árbol vacío, debajo de la espuma de una ola que revienta en este instante en todos los mares, con las manos apuntando hacia el abalanzarse de mi peso, con la boca entreabierta, sedienta de verter en la mía el aroma condensado de trasatlánticos deseos; de pie, desnudo, envuelto en hojas adheridas a ti como emergentes extremidades.

Espérame, llegaré en la herida, la primera que veas abrirse ante el filo del cuchillo que ahora toma tu mano y me dibuja con tu sangre.

Espérame en esa sierra espesa y morena, ya voy corriendo entre sus matorrales, elevando la sábana en que tantas veces soñaste mi cuerpo.

Y al fin me detengo, ataviada de una piel que me es ajena; y no puedes verme y tus gritos te despojan de tu garganta y lengua; tu mirada se dilata como queriendo atrapar mi ser invisible y en la palma de mi mano el borde, la bocanada aún humeante de tu último suspiro Carta al caballero de la triste figura Latin American Literary Review • 61 a mis pies una vez más vencida tu exangüe y errabunda silueta tu yelmo destartalado naufragando en el viento tu gentil sudor que inhalo y relamo a solas mi quimera y tu ceniza frente a frente en el centro de todas las páginas erguidamente sepultadas

La dama del perfil ausente Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net

A párpados forza’os Quien se pinta aún debajo de los pies, pinta mucho más arriba hasta con los pies.

Samiri Hernández Hiraldo

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Samiri Hernández Hiraldo was born in Puerto Rico. She earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Michigan. She has written academic work, including her book, Black Puerto Rican Identity and Religious Experience (2006; 2014). She currently conducts research on reafricanization and the arts. Her poetry collection, La tela por la venta, was published in Puerto Rico in 2016. She has also published poetry in Spanish and English in several academic and literature journals. She teaches anthropology at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University in Tallahassee. She is a board member of Palaver Tree Theater, a non-profit organization that promotes the arts in her living area, especially among the underrepresented. She helps coordinate poetry events and other arts and community projects.

A párpados forza’os

Buscando menos y menos tierra sumergida bajo tanta basura: plástico, madera nueva o vieja, latas y bolsas más y entre abiertas desde la inaugural intención entre pies y manos parvularias y adultas un tanto diestras—no tanto la nariz ni el perro casi sin rabo—y entre, por lo menos: chupones, una correa, un cellphone, un lápiz sin goma y con punta, espejuelos casi nuevos Ray-Ban, una fotografía opaca, dos patas de gallinas amarradas, un diente atrapado en cáscaras de huevos, uvas tarjadas, velas blancas a más de la mitad, una esponja dentro de dos cuartos de taza, la mitad de un parabrisas, un martillo sin cabo, obituarios doblados como si al pendiente en cuatro, como si todavía dentro de una pared floja o páginas de un libro por terminar de leerse, llaves para colgarse, manchas de tipos O, As y Bs tibia o caliente por tanto calor y humedad armada.

Hasta la lija del aire entre cachispas súper o menos extras con o sin pestañas—siendo o no a lo Sylvia de Grasse, extensas— no cesa de lucir de lo teflón “nutriente” a lo cenizas medio magnéticas, como cualquier Misis Fu DeFlor de zarcillos enmarcada por los cuatro lados para guindarse sin tanta del-portugués introducción en El Museo del Barrio.

Inspired by the documentary, Wasteland (2011), based in Brazil, by Lucy Walker, Karen Harley and João Jardim

A párpados forza’os Latin American Literary Review • 63 Quien se pinta aún debajo de los pies, pinta mucho más arriba hasta con los pies.

Destape sin oficial palanca

¿Sobre qué preciso punto del universo (o multi-universos) se detendrán; física rompecabezas, aprendida o no, de huesos bajo pieles secuestradas, abusadas, tiroteadas, tiradas en el desierto, por ejemplo de Atacama, al agua, de la punta baja de Chile al norte de México? ¿Acaso no fue desde su monumental empezar, el somier interim hasta lo busca-que-busca: pacífica fungal raíz de ancestral memoria y al pendiente, hojarascas de culantro y achiote entre miles de amarillas estrellas, bien azules mariposas?

Inspired by the documentary, Nostalgia for the Light (2011) by Patricio Guzmán

Sobrecurveadas

No es una simple pared de línea erecta, color rosita/rosa la que yace con su propio made-in-US por demasiado distinguir lo de adentro y lo de afuera; en realidad depósito gerencial de tantas bastante o no, intersecas, paralelas que lo mismo se mezclan, cateto e hipotenusa tratando de subir y bajar, contener como cualquier vientre, a lo rayos x traspasar, incluyendo el espacio diagonal entre la línea pedestal, y la que en un nuevo modelo de seguro posará, si es que ya no existe alcantarillada— incadas, chichones, cortadas todavía abiertas, llagas secas o mojadas, a la vez torciéndose, recreando montañas de peludas ramas, nubes de aposenta construcción, que imminentes se juntan ¿Quién tuviera pupilas por lo menos liminales de dos en dos para ver lo que en realidad recogen y esparcen (sin tener mucho que esconder, que zafarse) entre buches de lluvia potable, de flexible después y antes, con el pulposo, de vez en cuando tan cabizbajo sol?

64 • Latin American Literary Review A párpados forza’os Quien se pinta aún debajo de los pies, pinta mucho más arriba hasta con los pies.

Hasta entre los dedos, su buen telón

Entre los dedos, su buen pie de atleta frente a una cámara de televisor miameña de escénica y primordial latinx audiencia. ¿Habrá de ser su única señal indéxica (con control remoto) mi tía Amelia: “¡Ay mi madre, que cosa tan asquerosa, pero ¿en qué vamos a parar?! Por eso mismo es que...”—uñas y callos dolientes bajo presión arterial alta, tan ejercida aunque porosa desde bien atrás y como si ultra de espalda; improvisada o calculada por condimentarse horas encaramadas o no, y de reacción, sí, reacción matte o gloss negro y blanco con caldo zapoteca rojo, yendo por las letras, como si no ardiera. Y pasa que lo que entra antes de salir entre los dedos con su obelisco acento para aquí y para allá se acomoda y hasta se bi o tri-infla y tener que abordar desde el suelo, el mismísimo suelo, y columpiar entre esto y aquello, y de una afilada punta de plástico, vidrio, mohoso clavo o de aguja sin hilo explotar, ¿y doler menos?

De tipo M con encasillado y dibujito de machete por seleccionar

Azúcar, oh azúcar Sin tener que masticarla: cra, cra Más bien ahora de simple tragar: ga, ga ¿Qué más se dará por sentado Parado, doblado, enñangotado; disfrazada y superficial? Como si la armaria de siempre, Chi-his, chi-to, chi-ria/bla-blá, Como si vacía de empollado dolor, Easygoing, de facilísimo cut Tan, tan—Llena negro

Cimarronera

Un refugio (no de simple tent) de canción grande, maracas, güiro, pleneras, marimba veracruzana, cajón, guitarra; la jabá de trenzas rastas meneando hasta su más oscuro bombón (sin goma de mascar dentro), baila que baila

Dice la desarrugada canción: mi piel no es una estreñida hogaza de tanto arrastrar hasta sobre la nieve “close-up” tules bajo transnacionales plumas y sobre, alúminas guirnaldas con marcas por sellar histérica imaginación. Desde la improvisada diaria tarima, masca que masca, la encía con sangre tejida, tres plegarias; presupuesto al veinticinco... A párpados forza’os Latin American Literary Review • 65 Quien se pinta aún debajo de los pies, pinta mucho más arriba hasta con los pies.

Subalterna

In the name of Gayatri Spivak

La bahía, La Parguera de camino a minus-bioluminiscente reduciendo el tipo de orgánicas luces sin necesitar más que la geriátrica luz solar— de eso desde el mismo centroalto de Adjuntas, Alexis y Tinti sabrán, el agua de aire libre, y sus puros gases

Alguien las ha pintado, uno, dos, tres, al contacto luces demasiado gigantes (esta vez sin vinagre; abastecido enjuague) de nostalgia por volverse a calibrar silbando en oraciones completas a lo isla-La Gomera antes que insaciable desaparezca hasta del paciente olvido de español Guinea Ecuatorial disque que a tan mordida luna en base Clemente-tercera